08 Hounds and Hunters pt2 of the Suffering Trilogy
by Silent Elegy
Summary: Sequel to Cat and Mouse. The Paranormal Society of Baltimore has finally invited the Fentons to their annual convention. But Baltimore is very close to a place Danny wants to forget, and the most twisted villian he has ever faced is back for a rematch.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: Danny Phantom and all related characters are the product of Butch Hartman and Nickelodeon studios. Copperfield,Creeper, Killjoy, and related character are the product of Midway Games. Silver, Ed,and Kat/Electra are the product Silent Elegy.

A/N: Yeah, yeah. I know I shouldn't post this until tomorrow, but I couldn't wait any longer. I really like this one. I'm having a lot of fun with it. Anyway, once again, you don't need to know the other half of my source material. For those of you who are over 18 and interested, though, it's The Suffering: Ties That Bind. And again, scenes of violence, implications of death, and a heck of a lot of angst. There is no cussing (which was difficult because it means one of the characters is just shy of being OOC), but the word bastard does come up a few times. If you are easily offended, leave now. That's your warning. Flame me and die. Oh yeah, and on recommendation from my dear absent Faded Hope...

DISCLAIMER: Silent Elegy cannot be held responsible for nightmares, creepy feelings, ect.

* * *

For fifty years, the city of Baltimore has played host to a gathering of the world's most prestigious ghost hunters, the Paranormal Society. The annual PS Ghost Hunter's Convention is a Who's Who of the most renowned and influential psychics, mediums, hunters, and experts from all over the world. They meet to exchange and discuss ideas and theories, to learn from each other, and most importantly, to brag to each other. 

It was during one such convention, five years ago, that a disaster of apocalyptic proportions struck. No one knows what happened that day, though popular belief holds that it was a military experiment gone horribly wrong. The rumor states that the government was using a nearby prison island for illegal chemical weapons testing. The subsequent prison break that resulted in everyone being evacuated infected the city of Baltimore with hallucinations of terrifying monsters. The undeniable result was complete and total mayhem; many, many people lost their lives in the most gruesome ways.

The Paranormal Society held a slightly different view, naturally enough. They believed that a tear in the fabric of reality of allowed ghosts and monsters from the ethereal plains to enter the world. They spent five years looking for proof of their theory, but to no avail. The monsters disappeared as quickly and completely as they had arrived, leaving suffering in their wake. The only clues left were the numerous sightings of two of Baltimore's most infamous ghosts.

During the eighteen hundreds, the city was a stop-over for the Underground Railroad, the path escaped slaves took to reach freedom. Many people made their livings off of hunting those slaves down, but one in particular went down in local history as the most evil and depraved of them all.

The slave hunter Copperfield was the best and the most relentless. Once he began the hunt, his unfortunate victim was doomed. By his side was a pack of rottweilers that he routinely starved; their meals came from their quarry. The unfortunate slaves never survived being hunted down, and neither did the people who helped them.

Other, more recent legends, tell of a string of murders. At first, the victims were always prostitutes. Since no one much cared about them, very little was done to stop the killer. After a while, the victims became women in general. Towards the end, men who were or might have been perceived as homosexual were added to the list. By the time the police decided to be involved, it was far too late to catch the culprit, a misogynous pimp who came to be known as Creeper.

That was years and years ago, twenty at the very least. The serial murders have long since stopped, but every once in a while, someone will turn up dead. There's no evidence, no suspects, and no apparent reason. The victim is found, often in an alley, gutted like a fish, Creeper's M.O. Witnesses invariably claim to have seen a large man in a trench coat.

Sightings of Creeper and Copperfield increased dramatically since that day five years ago. The head of the Paranormal Society, Ed Johnson, dropped the latest reports on his desk and turned to stare out the window with a sigh. The two ghosts had become his life's work since that day, and he finally had an idea for how to deal with them.

The only people to return from Carnate Island alive these past years just happened to be the world-renowned Amity Park ghost hunters, Jack and Maddie Fenton. He had honestly expected the outcome to be just like all the others he had invited there, but they had surprised him.

Yes, he rather thought the Fentons might finally capture the two ghosts and prove that all his theories had been right all along…


	2. Chapter One

"Dad, this is third time this year," announced an irate female voice. "It's not good for Danny for you to keep pulling him out of school."

"Ah, come on, Jazz," the boy in question called from across the hotel room. "It's not like I'm behind on my homework."

Jazz harrumphed and turned to face her brother. "That's not the point. You're missing out on a critical point in your social development."

Danny rolled his eyes at his would-be psychiatrist of a sister. She was convinced that she knew better than everyone else. Unfortunately, she was nearly always right, as well.

"Now, Jazz," their father said patronizingly. "Getting invited to the Paranormal Society's annual Ghost Hunters' Convention is a once in a lifetime opportunity."

"You mean once a year…" Jazz muttered, but Jack continued as though she hadn't spoken.

Danny didn't pay much attention, choosing to stare out the glass door that led to the balcony instead. Somewhere out there was a dark mass of land where he had learned the true meaning of the word "nightmare". Although, logically, he couldn't see it from here, his brain had convinced him that he could. There was the beach, with its wrecked Spanish galleon, where he thought he had lost his family for good. Beyond that, the walls of the Carnate Institute for the Alienated, where he had faced the creator of that nightmare. He repressed a shudder and turned his attention to the interior of the room.

It was a decent enough suite the Society had boarded them in, even if it did smell like moth balls. Two rooms, three beds, cable, Pay-per-View…and best of all, no Lancer or Dash for a whole two days.

"All right, kids," said Maddie as she finished whatever she had been doing. "Hurry up and get dressed so we can make it to dinner."

The two kids went back to their room, and Danny let Jazz have the bathroom first. He had a very uneasy feeling here, almost as though his ghost sense was going off, even though it wasn't. He wandered around the room for a bit and found himself staring out at the Atlantic again. With a sigh, he turned and threw himself onto the bed. It was just that place; it was too close for comfort. But it wasn't as though Silver could escape…

Could she?

* * *

The convention hall was easily the largest Danny had ever seen, and it was populated by all manner of self-titled spirit mediums. There was a time when he had not believed in psychic abilities, but he seen first hand that they were real. Silver had been psychic. He cowered slightly, worried that at any moment someone would notice that he was half ghost.

Jazz patted his shoulder comfortingly and whispered, "Relax. These people are all charlatans."

"But what if they're not?" he whispered back. He jumped as their conversation was boisterously interrupted.

"You must be the Fentons!" announced a man who appeared to be in his late fifties. He held out his hand as he approached, and Jack shook it.

"Yep!" he answered happily. "I'm Jack; this is my wife, Maddie."

"Nice to meet you," she said a bit more sedately than her husband.

"And this is Jazz and Danny," Jack went on, indicating his children in turn.

"Edward Johnson," the man introduced himself. "Call me Ed."

"Oh, you run the Society!" Maddie interjected. "Thank you so much for inviting us…"

Danny shuffled around a bit then, with a glance at Jazz, slowly wandered off. He glanced in mild interest at the varying styles. It was a fascinating sight, even for someone who didn't really care about clothes. The fashions ranged from normal suits and ties to formalwear from other countries. Then, there were the mediums, who to a one of them, dressed as flamboyantly as possible. A few of them eyed him suspiciously as he meandered nervously past, but no one challenged him. Maybe Jazz was right…

A flash of white caught his eye. Back home, it had been several nerve-wracking days before he stopped seeing that out of the corner of his eye. Its presence now, in this proximity to that hated place, brought back his terrified reaction. He turned quickly to catch it again, but it was only someone's outfit. He jerked around again as a second flash crossed the corner of his eyes; his breath caught as he heard a clattering noise that proved to belong to someone's jewelry.

He glanced around to see that Jazz had wandered off as well, then decided to get out of the crowd. Things had just started to become normal again, and now this. Next thing, he'd start hallucinating again. A secluded corner by a window finally provided respite from the psychosomatic sightings. He shifted his gaze from the ocean to the street below.

There was a rottweiler down there, barking frantically at something. A bum ambled by behind it, and it didn't even turn. Apparently, something had it pretty spooked. Danny raised his eyes and gasped. He turned quickly, but there was nothing behind him. His eyes flitted around frantically, looking for the woman in a white dress and chains, not caring that people were giving him strange looks. With an apprehensive sigh that might have been part whine, he turned back to the window.

For just a split second, she was there, her icy eyes boring into his own. He cried out and stumbled backwards, then turned and fled. It wasn't real; it couldn't be! Silver couldn't possibly be here. There was no way off the island.

Unless his parents were right, and it had just been a dream caused by evil ghost energy. Danny had been somewhat skeptical of that until Jazz pointed out that being half ghost probably made him sensitive to such things.

But she had been there…on the beach…next to the wrecked ship…

It was a good, reasonable excuse his family had provided, but he couldn't believe it. Even if they had only been trapped on the island for a few hours, even if it had been a dream, Silver was a real person.

He sank onto a chair in the mostly empty lobby and dropped his head into his hands. Someone asked if he was okay; he waved the person off, not paying much attention. If Silver was here, she had found some way off the island. Danny found himself praying it was only a hallucination.

"Danny?" Jazz asked, having seen him tear across the room. "Are you okay?"

He looked up, and for just a moment, he saw a silver metal creature with knives for arms and legs standing behind his sister. He managed to restrain the impulse the shove her out of the way and start blasting at it and shook his head. "I keep seeing Silver," he said quietly.

Jazz sat next to him and covered his hand with one of hers. "Danny, Silver wasn't re-"

"Yes, she was!" he interrupted her more forcefully than he meant to. In a quieter tone, he went on. "I thought it was over when we got away, but ever since we got here, I've been seeing her."

"Why didn't you say anything sooner?"

Danny paused, confused, until he realized what she was asking. "No, not here as in Baltimore," he clarified. "Here as in this room. I keep seeing something white running around the edges of my vision, and I saw her reflection in that window. Twice." He didn't mention that the second time, her reflection had overlapped his. He shook his head. "Then, she was standing behind you, just now."

Jazz went quiet for a long time. Finally, she asked, "Are you seeing her right now?" When he shook his head, she gave him a dubious look, but didn't press the issue. "Some bad stuff happened here, five years ago. It was just like what happened on Carnate, and I think Dad said it was about the same time. Maybe it's just the negative ghost energy affecting you again."

He nodded without speaking, his eyes on the silver metal slayer that stood by the elevators. It was a good reason for the hallucinations, if that was all they were. But he knew better.

As the evening wore on, he managed to more or less ignore the images that appeared both before his eyes and in his mind. When dinner was served, he couldn't bring himself to ignore what was on his plate, and begged off eating. His parents exchanged concerned glances, and he spent the better part of twenty minutes trying to convince them that he simply wasn't hungry. It wasn't hard to do considering that the sight of a still-beating heart had caused him to completely lose his appetite.

He finally managed to talk his way into being allowed to go back to his room. As soon as the elevator doors closed, he felt more at ease. Back in his room, he flipped on the TV and threw himself onto his bed. It had been a very trying two hours, to say the least. He was just starting to relax when the phone rang, and startled him into a yelp. "Hello?" he all but demanded.

"Hi, sweetie," his mom's voice came through. "Are you feeling any better?"

"A little," he answered vaguely.

"Good enough to go on a ghost tour with us?"

"Uh…pass…" The last thing he wanted to do on this vacation was hunt ghosts. He got enough of that at home.

Maddie sounded a bit disappointed. "Well, Jazz is coming, but if you really don't want to..." she paused for a moment as though hoping he would change his mind, then sighed. "We'll be back in an hour or two. Don't wait up."

"Sure, Mom. Bye."

He hung up and lay back against the headboard. Although he wasn't actually intending to fall asleep, the sudden stop of the nonstop visions had left him more exhausted than he realized. He didn't even notice when the world went away.

* * *

_He ran down an endless corridor, neither knowing nor caring how he had come to be there. Behind him, a pack of slavering, human-faced dogs bayed out their lust for his blood. Behind them, a large man with an old fashioned rifle followed at a more leisurely pace._

"_My prey can never elude me for long," the man called out in a southern drawl that reminded him of old cowboy movies. "They try to run, but my hounds are relentless. Once they catch a scent, they'll follow it to the ends of the earth."_

_He glanced back and gave a panicked whine to see that his pursuers were getting closer. He looked forward, and cried out in fear to see the chained woman in his way with two of the gun monsters known as marksmen standing to either side of her. He dropped to the ground, certain that this was the end of him as the creatures took aim and began firing. After a few moments, he looked up to see that they were aiming past him and turned slightly to see the hounds lying in various pieces._

_The man stood behind them still, but his rifle was now aimed at Silver. "You'd best not to interfere with me, miss. I have no quarrel with you."_

"_Oh, no?" Silver asked lightly. "Well, I have one with you, _pendejo._ The ghost boy is mine." Her eyes flicked down to meet his and she smiled brightly. "Wake up, _niño_."_

Danny tried to stumble to his feet and only succeeded in falling to the floor, where he lay in a heap for several minutes. The initial fear reaction subsided to reveal the deeper, and thankfully fleeting, hatred. Silver had taught him what it meant to truly hate a thing, and that friendly smile had brought it all back.

A game, she had called it as she showed him image after image of his family being tortured and killed in the most horrible ways. A game, she said with that same bright smile, as though it was nothing more than harmless fun. He clenched his fists as the desire to throttle her returned full force.

A male voice caught his attention. He disentangled himself and jumped to his feet, but it was only a newscaster on television. He laughed a little at himself and sat down, not really paying much attention until he realized what the story was. Monsters, mayhem, ghost sightings…his breath caught in his throat. The image they displayed showed a slayer chasing some people while the police tried to shoot it. He recognized those people; he had seen them at the convention…

"Mom and Dad!" he yelled. He jumped into the air at the same time he switched to ghost mode and fled the room. Silver really was here.


	3. Chapter Two

Maddie sighed irritably and glanced at her disgruntled husband. The tour guide had promised there would be ghosts on this tour, but so far, there were none to be had. Several of the mediums kept reporting cold spots; considering the low temperature, she wasn't surprised. The Fenton Finder hadn't gone off since they left the hotel, but the self-titled psychics kept trying to say they felt various presences. One of them even tried to convince everyone that he was being possessed.

"Who does he think he's fooling?" Jack leaned down to whisper.

Maddie shook her head and yawned, then glanced behind her to see that Jazz had somehow managed to sneak one of her books along. She momentarily considered telling the girl to put it away, but decided to simply envy her the entertainment instead.

A barking rottweiler finally ended the debacle as it crashed headlong into the "possessed" man, scaring him witless, and kept running. Three more followed behind it, scattering the humans like sheep. The dogs seemed to be running from something, as though they were terrified of it. Maddie glanced at her husband and saw that he was thinking the same thing she was: dogs could sense ghosts.

"Sweetie, wait with the group," Maddie told Jazz, who nodded worriedly.

"Not to worry, everyone!" Jack announced. "I, Jack Fenton, will take care of that little ghost problem." Maddie arched an eyebrow, but decided not to challenge him in front of their colleagues. They pulled their hoods over their faces and cautiously walked in the direction the dogs had come from, failing to notice the amused smirks.

The Fenton Finder began acting strangely. It beeped a few times in response to a ghostly presence near an open manhole, then started to make a high-pitched whining sound. The digital display wavered and shook like an old television with bad reception. Little green dots that would normally show a ghost's location appeared and disappeared completely at random. Coming to a silent yet mutual decision with her husband, Maddie simply turned it off before they climbed down into the sewer.

Jack made a noise of revulsion as he picked up his foot. "I don't want to know," he said simply.

Maddie chuckled lightly. "Honey, no one ever said ghost hunting would always be glamorous." She patted his shoulder as he pretended to pout, then they were all business again as they moved forward, ecto-pistols at the ready.

A noise slowly intruded on their awareness. At first, it sounded like someone sobbing, but as they walked further and it became louder, it sounded more like insane giggling. It stopped suddenly as the sound of a woman screaming pierced their ears. Maddie ran toward the sound, trusting Jack to follow. It was difficult to track the echo, but eventually she rounded a corner to see the body of a young prostitute hacked to pieces and scattered everywhere. Time seemed to slam to a halt as she took in the violent scene and noticed the large, grinning man in a trench coat standing in the middle of it all.

The scene vanished as quickly as it had appeared, leaving nothing but bloodstained ground. "Jack, did you see that?" Maddie asked quietly. When she got no response, she turned to see that she was alone.

_Now, this should be fun,_ whispered a voice.

The ghost hunter whirled around, pistol at the ready, to see nothing. "Who said that?" she demanded, turning in a slow circle. "Who are you?"

_So like my_ pequeño muchacho_, aren't you? Very well. I am _El Fantasma de Platasignora._ I know the fate of your _hombre_. Come and find me in the temple of self medication. I fear his life and that of your daughter are rather…limited..._

Maddie went cautiously back the way she came. There were no signs of a struggle; Jack's footprints simply stopped. She swallowed fearfully and looked around. The loving mother and wife inside her head was aching to fall apart, but that would do no good. She had to find this "temple of self medication" and quickly.

A flash of white caught her eyes, and she quickly turned to see a woman in a white dress draped in chains disappear around a corner. She remembered the nightmare her son had described to her, and the apparition in white he had called Silver. That creature had plagued his dreams for weeks; she still heard him cry out from time to time. She hadn't believed it was anything more than a ghost-induced dream until now.

"She led me around," Danny had confessed quietly, staring at his feet. "It was part of the game; she wanted to give me a sporting chance, I guess."

Maddie stared after Silver for a few seconds, then gritted her teeth and followed.

* * *

People called them gorgers. They were vaguely humanoid monstrosities that seemed to exist only to eat everything in sight. Most of the people he had rescued had simply run away in fear, but one of them had stayed to tell the story. The young man had done so grudgingly, but he said he owed Danny that much at least. 

Several years ago, a pious priest had run a homeless shelter and mission in the area. Food was sparse at the best of times; when it finally ran out, he had made the decision to find alternative meat. When his flock had found out what they were eating, they had turned on him and set fire to the mission. According to the legend, those people had become the gorgers.

"But what was the meat?" Danny asked, confused.

The man looked at him as though he was completely daft. "Human," he answered, then ran off.

Danny stared after him, grateful that his ghost form kept him from completely loosing his lunch. A sharp pain in his back brought his attention to the froglike creature that had appeared behind him. He groaned at the sight of one of his more annoying foes, the mainliner. Like its Carnate cousin, it had syringes sticking out of its back and through its eyes, which it yanked out to throw at him. Although the liquid in these was glowing orange instead of green, it seemed to have the same effect on him: none whatsoever. He destroyed the thing with a single energy blast and continued his fast paced flight across Baltimore.

He flew low, as much to help the few people he came across as to find his family. Fortunately, this time around, he had full access to his ghost powers. The monsters were no match for him when he could simply turn intangible and blast them, and he wasn't about to let Silver make him think she had locked his powers away again. In fact, he wasn't going to fall for any of her games.

Maybe that was why she had yet to bother him. The thought was a very heartening one.

He stopped short as a voice cried out for help, and shot through the wall of an electronics store looking for the source. "Is anyone here?" he called out.

Every television in the room came on suddenly. The snowy images flickered yellow a few times, then settled onto a static-plagued picture of a doctor with a bloodstained apron over a black suit, a pair of rubber gloves, and some kind of reflecting disk on his forehead.

"Ah, come on!" Danny pleaded.

Dr. Killjoy, who had opened his mouth to spew some elongated prose-filled greeting, closed it again with a snap and glared. "Really now, my dear boy," he chastised in his jovial English accent. "I am here to help you. I do wish you would simply accept that."

"Are Haight and Horace here too?" the boy asked, his voice bordering on bitter. Although he wouldn't have minded seeing the executed inmate Horace Gauge again, the executioner Hermes Haight was another matter entirely. He and Silver had been jointly responsible for the nightmare of Carnate Island.

Killjoy sighed and threw up his hands. "Very well, my boy. I can take a hint. No, they are not. However…well, you'll see."

"I'll see what?"

"You may find it prudent to follow our dear Silver again. Though, I'll confess, the game is not hers this time."

"What do you mean?" Danny demanded, but the screens flickered out. Before he could react further, the one creature he hated more than any other spoke into his mind.

_Hello, _niño._ I've missed you._

The boy froze as the burning feelings he had thought long gone threatened to overwhelm him. At last, once he thought he had himself firmly under control again, he turned. "Silver," he greeted the lady in chains in a somewhat choked voice.

She smiled happily. _You didn't come back to visit me. I thought you had forgotten me._

"Oh, believe me, I tried."

_Now, that's not very nice, is it?_ She pointed to the right and vanished.

Danny clenched his fists and took a slow breath to center himself. A pair of rottweilers ran by, barking frantically. He looked at them before flying off in the direction they had come from. He remembered his parents saying dogs could sense ghosts; were they running towards the ghosts or away?

The only people he saw were in states best left not described. To say they appeared to have been ravaged by wild animals would have been understating the situation. He repressed a shudder and flew higher. A few hulking marksmen tried to shoot him, but he went intangible and made quick work of them.

Suddenly, he saw his father and sister standing down below and dropped down to greet them happily. He realized all was not right moments before time stopped to show him the man from his dream standing behind the two humans as they were ripped apart by a pack of human-faced hounds. Then the image was gone.

Danny hung in the air, his head in his hands. It never got easier. But then, that was a good thing, after all.

* * *

A/N: Copperfield, Creeper, and all of the monsters are from the game. Silver and Ed are OCs. Most of the locations are from the game, although I do make up a few. Like the hotel. I'll also say that I'm not just copying the plot the game took. A few of the events were inspired by this game or its predecessor, but most of them were inspired by the twisted side of my mind.


	4. Chapter Three

Maddie stuffed as much of her fist as would fit into her mouth to stifle her errant sobs as the image of Jazz being ripped open by that maniac in a trench coat faded. Suddenly, she had a new respect for her son's conviction. He had refused to describe all the things he had seen in that nightmare, but if they were half as bad as that…

It really was a wonder the boy was still sane.

A breathy giggle finally brought her back to reality. She looked in every direction, but couldn't find the source. It stopped for a moment, then resumed as very quick and shallow breathing, as though the owner of the voice was excited beyond all measure. "Pretty…lady…" it breathed. "I'll see inside you soon enough. Hee hee…I know you're looking forward to it." The insane laughter faded away.

Maddie recalled Danny's description of Haight as she continued through the sewers. It didn't fit the character she had just heard. Haight had been insane and sadistic, but from Danny's words, he didn't seem like the type to giggle. And Horace had been friendly and helpful, so it couldn't be him, either. She climbed through a mass of rubble while she tried to remember who else Danny had mentioned. She thought there was one more…

A clattering noise distracted her, and a creature she thought must be a slayer came into view climbing along the ceiling. She fired at it several times, and it finally dropped limply to the ground. While she waited to see if it planned on moving again, an identical creature made out of silver metal jumped out of the darkness to land knife-points first on top of its twin. The first slayer didn't even twitch as the metal blades passed through it.

Maddie placed the reason for that insanity very quickly. "I know what you are," she told the creature. "You're not real."

_Oh, I'm very real,_ signora, Silver said good-naturedly. She rose up on two legs to stride forward until she had Maddie backed against the rubble._ See? You know to fear me, don't you? My _muchacho_ told you all about me, didn't he?_

"He's not your boy," the angry mother responded in a low and menacing tone. "And real or not, I know you're not really there." To prove her point, she walked forward…

…and straight into the very painful point of a dagger.

_Real or not, _signora, _I am dangerous. I have convinced far stronger than you that they have just been stabbed to death. Even your Danny, who knew my tricks, felt the sting of a marksman's bullets. Do not think that simply because I cannot hurt you, it follows that I cannot kill you._

Silver vanished, and Maddie felt her throat. She could still feel the prick of the knife, and it took several minutes before she managed to convince her mind that she wasn't really bleeding. Once she did, however, the pain and the blood on her fingers disappeared.

She had no idea how long she had been in these sewers, but her olfactory sense seemed to have temporarily shut down in rebellion at the smell. The area was relatively dry; likely this was the old city that Baltimore had been built on top of. She couldn't remember if Baltimore had, in fact, been built on its predecessor's ruins, but that's what it looked like.

She had been aware of a low growling noise for some time, but had dismissed it as her imagination. Frantic barking forced her to reconsider her judgment and turn just in time to start running. A ledge up ahead provided her with a modicum of respite and the opportunity to really see her pursuers.

They might have been rottweilers at one time, but no longer. Their skin was stretched taut against a skeleton that was more human than canine. Their tails were little more than animated vertebrae, and their faces were disturbingly human. Each creature had a long knife tied to the side of its face, although it might actually have been growing there.

"I hope you don't believe you're safe up there," drawled a deep voice. The southerner was dressed in a long coat with a series of pointed teeth that lined the collar, pointed towards his face. He raised an old fashioned rifle and lined the barrel up with Maddie. "Just because my hounds can't reach you, doesn't mean I can't."

She gasped and threw herself from the ledge just in time to avoid being shot in the head. The hounds jumped on her, biting and scratching, but she managed to fight her way free and start running again. Behind her, gunshots ricocheted off the concrete walls. She tried to twist around to fire at her pursuers, but nearly lost her balance. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, she simply kept running. There was faint moonlight ahead; if she could reach it…

Then what?

* * *

Danny walked up to the creature that he had just defeated. It had taken longer to beat than a marksman, but it had been no more difficult. It almost looked like a spider, except that the tips of all its legs ended in automatic rifles. They sprouted from the back of a bullet-riddled human corpse that held two sub-machine guns in its hands. The boy decided that with the possible exception of Carnate Island's festers, this creature was the worst one yet.

A thud behind him caused him to whirl quickly, but it was only a silver metal marksman. Silver reached up to pull the blindfold off of her eyes so that she looked like Baltimore's marksman instead of Carnate's. _They're called triggermen,_ she informed him, gesturing at the creature behind him. _Aren't they great? I'm bringing them back to Carnate with me when I go._

A few different responses flitted through the boy's head, and he settled on simply ignoring her and leaving. A few dozen feet above the ground, he could see that the street had caved in ahead. He could hear more frantic barking, but didn't pay much attention.

_I'm not the one running this game, you know?_ Silver whispered. _I'm just playing. The reason I mention this is that…well, maybe you should hurry before…_ Her "voice" trailed off and the image of his mother being ravaged by those human-faced hounds flitted across his mind.

She had shown him so many images that he wasn't inclined to believe this one. He maintained his pace, refusing to give her the benefit of seeing him frantically try to rescue an illusion. As the barking got louder, however, he started to get really worried. He thought he could hear a human voice mixed in with it.

Actually, hadn't the boy who cried wolf been serious in the end?

Something obviously human and dressed in blue burst out of the hole in the street and made it about three feet before the hounds caught her. Danny was already at his top speed. He reached out and blasted a few of the dog-things, then dove right into the middle of them, fists and feet flailing.

Their master strode out of the collapsed road and whistled shrilly. The few remaining hounds were suddenly joined by almost a dozen more. "Make it easy on yourself and give in. No one can escape my hounds."

Danny beat off one last hound, then grabbed his mother and shot into the sky. A few bullets whizzed by, so he made them both intangible until he could land safely on the roof of some bar. He drifted backwards a few inches. "Are you okay?"

A hand closed around the front of his suit suddenly, and pulled him down to eyelevel with a weary yet angry Maddie Fenton. "What are you doing here?" she demanded.

"Uh…I…um…uh," the ghost boy stammered. "I…followed you…?"

That was problem with Maddie Fenton; she was competent. Jack would simply have accepted the lie at face value, but not Maddie. She narrowed her eyes behind her red goggles. "Why?"

"Uh…I was…bored?" Danny grinned nervously, praying she wouldn't press the issue. Now, that the crisis was averted, he was again worried about his secret identity. He knew his mother occasionally suspected something, although her firm belief that humans couldn't have ghost powers kept her from ever actually making the connection. It also helped that she seen Fenton and Phantom standing side by side a time or two.

Maddie grudgingly released her son on the grounds that she couldn't stand any longer. Her legs were weak from the extended run, and the sudden cessation of adrenaline had left her somewhat shaky. She sat down on the flat, concrete roof, wondering why a ghost would seem so worried about her welfare.

"I don't suppose you've seen my Danny?" she asked in a somewhat quieter tone. Silver had mentioned her husband and daughter, but had said nothing about her son. She wasn't sure whether she should be worried or relieved by that.

Danny hesitated before shaking his head. He considered telling her that he was still in the hotel room, but that would have led to awkward questions about what he was doing there in the first place. It didn't make the look of unveiled concern any easier to bear.

_Aw, now isn't this just a Kodak moment?_

"Silver!" Danny yelled, focusing his gaze on the lady in chains that had appeared behind his mother. He helped Maddie get to her feet, mildly amazed when she didn't try to push him away.

"What do you want with us?" Maddie demanded. She made certain her legs would support before she shook off the helping hand.

_I want to play. I'm so very lonely._

"To play?" Maddie repeated incredulously. "You think this is a game?"

"Yeah, she does," Danny answered. "Just ignore her." Of course, that was much easier said than done, he thought.

_You don't have what it takes to ignore me,_ niño.

The image of Jack and Jazz surrounded by slayers flashed across his mind; his mother apparently saw it, too, judging by her fearful gasp. "You leave my family alone, _signora_," Maddie commanded, adding a mocking twist to the title. She seemed very dangerous in that moment; even Silver opened her eyes a little wider in surprise. Then she smiled.

_I see where my _muchacho_ gets it from,_ she laughed as she vanished.

"He's not your boy!" Maddie called after her.

Danny smiled happily. It felt so good to have someone defending him against that fiend. The last time they met, she had him convinced that he was the worst creature on the face of the planet. He drifted over to the edge of the roof to make sure the slave hunter was gone.

"Why would you help me?" Maddie asked, seemingly curious more than disbelieving.

Danny shrugged his shoulders and hovered hunched over slightly. "Maybe I'm not that bad. Come on." He held out his hand. "We should probably keep going."

After a moment, Maddie let him lower her to the ground. She wasn't entirely certain she trusted the ghost boy, but he had helped them before, when Jack was being hunted down by an assassin. Was it possible that not all ghosts were evil?

Danny floated alongside his mother, concerned. She had been trying to cover a limp, but it was becoming more pronounced. Any and all attempts to convince her to go somewhere safe had been met with stoic silence, and the one time he dared to directly ask if she was all right, she had practically bitten his head off.

Maddie was worried. They had been followed traces of white for what seemed like hours, although it probably hadn't been. She hadn't actually meant to snap, but she was tired and hurting, and his frequent displays of concern had started to grate on her nerves. She was beginning to envy him his ghostly tirelessness. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I just…"

"I know," Danny responded. The worry was plain on her face, and he agreed wholeheartedly.

Maddie stopped and looked at him for the first time in quite a while. "I don't suppose you can faze us through one of those buildings? I need to sit down for a while."

The boy grinned and led her into a store that was still mostly intact. He wholeheartedly agreed to that sentiment as well; he was getting a little tired himself. As luck would have it, they had found their way into a furniture store. Maddie sank gratefully into a recliner while Danny hovered limply a few feet away, both of them trying to relax and stay alert at the same time.

A few creatures wandered by outside. A triggerman started a fight with a pack of slayers, but they succeeded in getting the better of it and wandered off. Danny was half asleep when something thudded against the window, but it was only a dead mainliner. The gorger responsible stomped up to the window and leaned down to devour the body. With a noise of disgust, the boy turned his attention to his mother, who was completely asleep.

He very much doubted she would appreciate not being awakened, but she needed the rest. A nearby bed provided a blanket, which he draped over her. "Night, mom," he whispered with a smile.


	5. Chapter Four

_She looked around the wood paneled room, wondering how she came to be there. The only light came from a lantern that sat on a nearby table and the moon that shone through the collapsed roof. It seemed to be an attic of some sort. The back half of the room was sectioned off by a floor-to-ceiling chicken wire fence, behind which stood the terrified form of her son._

"_What do you fear most?" asked Silver. Behind the fence, a pair of marksman appeared and took aim at Danny._

"_No!" she cried, reaching out to her boy. "Leave him alone!"_

"_You remind me of my _madre_," Silver said kindly. "She always defended me."_

_The marksman fired._

"NO!" Maddie screamed.

"Easy!" Danny exclaimed. "It was a nightmare! Okay?"

"Danny?" Maddie gasped, hearing her son's voice. Her face fell when she saw it was only the ghost boy standing next to her. "Oh, it's you."

There was a decidedly uncomfortable pause, and she looked up to see Danny staring at his feet. He sighed, a bit sadly it seemed, then looked back at her. "You were talking in your sleep," he explained quietly. "Silver was feeding you that dream. It wasn't real."

"How do you know about her?"

She was rather alarmed to see the boy's eyes brighten considerably, his expression identical to the one her son wore when he thought about Silver. "We've met," he replied curtly.

The abrupt sound of static filled the establishment. Alarmed, Maddie jumped to her feet, but Danny merely groaned as the televisions that lined the back wall resolved themselves to a sepia-toned image of an old psychiatrist's office. Dr. Killjoy strode into frame and stripped off his dripping rubber gloves. "My dear boy, I do hope you haven't forgotten me," he said pleasantly. "I must say, I do rather miss my projectors. Ah, well. _Se la vie_, as the French are wont to say. And this must be your dear-"

"Maddie!" Danny interrupted quickly. "Her name is Maddie, and she hunts people like me." He noticed the odd look his mother gave him and pretended not to.

Killjoy clucked disapprovingly. "My, my. 'Oh, what a tangled web we weave.' I should certainly like the opportunity to have the lot of you in my office one day."

The ghost boy grumbled something that sounded like "Over my dead body." All things considered, it was rather ironic, or so Maddie thought. She decided to put his responses away for contemplation later and turned her attention to the doctor. She thought she could honestly say that she had never seen a ghost quite like him. He seemed nice enough, and Danny was displaying more of an aggravated attitude than a hateful one toward him. She took a few steps towards the monitors and asked, "Who are you?"

He made a grandiose bow and contritely replied, "A thousand apologies madam! How positively boorish of me to forget my manners. "I am Killjoy. Doctor Killjoy, Ph.D. I am your son's…ahem, and our dear Phantom's psychiatrist." Danny muttered something unintelligible, but the doctor continued as though he hadn't heard. "Although, it does pain me to admit it, I seem to have a bit of trouble calling…ahem, _them_ in for _their_ appointments."

"Just shut up, already," Danny hissed. His mother was getting that look in her eyes again, the one that meant she was thinking about the similarities between her son and the ghost boy.

Killjoy merely gave him a superior look. "An interesting conundrum, to say the least." He may or may not have been referring to his inability to continue his sessions with Danny, a fact that was not lost on Maddie. She had noticed how he emphasized the plural terms, and firmly pushed the possible implications out of mind. Danny Phantom and Danny Fenton could not possibly be the same person. They couldn't.

Because the thought that they might be was too heart wrenching to contemplate.

She was drawn back to reality when the object of her musings said, "So are you here for a reason? Or do you just like to my life difficult?"

Killjoy chuckled lightly. "You mean 'afterlife', do you not?" If he had a physical body, Danny would have strangled him. "As it so happens, I did have a reason. Well, besides the obviously vain hope that you might like to share today, that is.

"I was looking into that fellow Copperfield's life; he would be that one with all the maulers, trying to hunt the both of you down. Quite a fascinating history, as a matter of fact. Apparently, he allowed his dogs to devour their prey, often still alive. A pity really that he won't speak to me. He would make a most fascinating case study. But, I digress."

Maddie leaned over to whisper, "Is he usually like this?" Danny gave a resigned nod.

Apparently oblivious to the exchange, Killjoy continued. "From what I can gather, he has spent his days tracking down the descendants of those who actually managed to elude him. Fortunately, he seems unable to leave Baltimore. However, that does little for the two of you. It appears that your progenitors were directly involved in the successful escapes of quite a number of slaves. It would seem your presence, my dear boy, coupled with the Fenton heritage has conspired to awaken him again."

"And I'm sure Silver had nothing to do with it," Danny remarked sarcastically.

_Of course, not,_ she replied, earning a growl from the ghost boy. _I'm just here to watch the game. And to play…_

Ever needing to be the center of attention, Killjoy cleared his throat. Once both sets of eyes were on him again, he bowed slightly. "I would suggest you run very quickly," he said casually. "And now if you will excuse me, I have a lobotomy to perform." The screens flickered out again.

Danny and Maddie had just enough time to wonder what he meant and begin to address each other when they heard the barking. The ghost boy grabbed his mother and started to fly for the roof. Suddenly, he felt like all his internal organs were being microwaved inside him and fell to the ground screaming.

_Now, that's no fun, is it?_

He was vaguely away of Maddie's truly concerned queries as he tried to fight off Silver's overpowering suggestion. "I'm _not_…letting you do this…to me again," he said between tightly clenched teeth. The pain released him as suddenly as it began, but they were out of time.

The hounds, or maulers as Killjoy called them, crashed through the store window. Maddie yanked Danny to his feet and dragged him into the backroom, slamming the door behind her. "What happened?" she demanded.

"Silver's locked my powers away," he explained as he led the way to the alley-side door. "I think I can fight it off again, but not while they're after us."

Then the maulers broke through, and they had to save their breath for running. Danny twisted around to blast at the few that got too close, and was gratified to see that Silver had once again left him with a sporting chance. Maddie did likewise with her ecto-pistol, but the ghost hunting weapon was little use against physical monsters.

A fence appeared to block the way; Danny blasted a gaping hole in it, and they were back on the open streets. They ran past a firing squad of triggermen about to shoot a helpless Jack and Jazz, and Maddie stumbled to a stop.

"It isn't real!" Danny yelled. He grabbed her hand and pulled her away from Silver's illusion mere seconds before the lead hound caught up. It was right on their heels, but the boy didn't dare let go of his mother to blast it, and trying to hit it with his free hand would only have made him lose his balance. After what seemed like an eternity, but was probably only a few minutes, Maddie pulled free and shot the thing herself.

Ahead, the image of Silver appeared to wave them into an alley. Neither of them was certain what her motive was, but they ran down it anyway. A wall at the far end forced them to stop.

Danny growled something that shouldn't be repeated, then laced his fingers together. "Climb up," he said, leaning down slightly.

The ghost hunter didn't bother to hesitate, but let Danny boost her up to reach the top of the wall. She had just barely grabbed hold of the edge when her support vanished in a mass of snarling and snapping. She scrambled the rest of the up and started blasting the hounds. "Leave him alone!" she exclaimed, punctuating each word with a shot. She wasn't sure what would happen to a ghost under those circumstances, but it didn't seem likely he would survive without better help than she could give. Fortunately, she was spared from having to find out as a green glow knocked the maulers several feet away before forming a half-sphere around the boy.

Danny held his arms as meager defense from multiple bite marks and stab wounds. Outside his ghost shield, the maulers worked themselves into even more of a frenzy trying to reach him. He didn't think he would be able to maintain consciousness for much longer, but he had been left with no means of escape. If he let his shield down to run, they would attack. He closed his eyes and wondered what his mother would think when she saw the remains of his very human body. At least he would be a full ghost then, and possibly able to defeat these creatures. Maybe she'd even let him explain before she accused him of possessing her son.

_Now, I'm disappointed. This isn't like you to just give up._

Was it his imagination, or did Silver actually sound worried?

_Get up, _niño, she said, her "voice" bordering on panic now. _Do something. You are the _fantasma muchacho._ You can't just give up._

"What other choice do I have?" he said quietly.

He flinched as a gun shot rang out, and turned to wait for his mother to topple over the edge. A second report, and he realized the shooter wasn't aiming at his mother. A third, and he saw a mauler topple to the concrete. Suddenly, the pack was more interested in the white-haired woman who stood in the alley entrance, holding two silver-plated colts. Twelve shots rang out in all, and the remaining maulers were slammed repeatedly into the walls and pavement by an invisible hand.

Danny let his shield drop and sank to his knees. Through rapidly dimming sight, he saw Silver give an ironic salute before running away again and was vaguely aware of Maddie as she slid back down the wall to check on him. He gratefully collapsed into her arms and let the darkness overwhelm him.


	6. Chapter Five

"_Why did you save me?" he called out to the entity he knew was listening._

_At first, he got no response. Then the mists parted slightly, and a silver mainliner crawled into view. It sat down, looking decidedly abashed. "Because I almost got you killed,_ niño,_" she replied. "I don't want Copperfield to have you. You're mine."_

"_Then why did you lead us down there in the first place?" he demanded angrily. She truly made no sense sometimes._

_Again, there was a prolonged pause. "She reminds me of my _madre._ I expected her to let you up first."_

_He bit off the angry retort that sprang to mind, not really surprised that Silver was willing to sacrifice his mother. What confused him was why she wanted him alive. The last time they met, she had given him a long explanation of exactly how much his death would mean to her, and assured him that he would never leave Carnate alive._

_The mainliner had waddled closer while he was distracted, and he backed away from it. "Won't you talk to me? We can't play unless you talk to me. You know that."_

"_Go talk to yourself," he growled._

Reality invaded his mind, and with it came the terrifying realization that he couldn't feel his body. After fighting against invisible bonds for a while, he discovered that it was only the remnants of sleep paralysis. He sank back a little ways back into the welcoming darkness, just aware enough to note that he was being held in a wonderfully comforting pair of arms.

What if Silver was waiting for him?

At that disturbing thought, he fought his way back to the surface of his mind again and pried his eyes open. He took a long, shuddering breath and decided that he did not want to move. The pain from the mauler wounds was considerably diminished, but the human contact was simply far too-

Wait, why wasn't the pain as bad as it should have been?

"Um…" he said quietly.

"Is there something you'd like to say, Danny?"

He cringed. Maddie's voice was so quiet, so hopeless. He wasn't sure he wanted to know what she thought about him in that moment, but at least she hadn't pushed him away. "I…was…going to tell you…?"

"So…what did you do with your body, then?" she asked in a choked voice.

Danny pulled away to turn and look at her. Her gaze was fastened on the alleyway entrance where a few gorgers had arrived to celebrate the bounty of dead maulers, but she wasn't actually watching them. Her hood was pulled back, and a glistening line of tears ran freely down her face. He looked down at his all-too-human hands, afraid to speak. She couldn't actually mean what he was afraid she meant.

A few minutes passed, during which the slurping noise of greedy gorgers was all that could be heard. "D…did you hide…it somewhere?" Maddie persisted. "Or were you just completely vaporized by the…the…" She stammered to a halt, unable to continue.

"Mom, I didn't die," Danny said fervently. Of all the consequences he had considered could happen by his never saying anything, this was not one he had thought of. Although he always knew they would accept him no matter what, some part of him had insisted that they would drive him away. Never in his wildest imaginings did it occur to him that his mother would think he had completely died.

Maddie shook her head slightly and finally faced him. "Please don't lie to me," she whispered. "I know humans can't be ghosts."

Danny dropped his eyes again. She was half right, anyway.

They stayed like that for a long time as the gorgers ate their way closer. Finally deciding that it might be a good idea to move, Maddie stood and Danny followed. They edged around the obliviously happy creatures and walked quietly down the sidewalk. He wanted to say something, to explain, but the words wouldn't come.

Maddie wiped her eyes and pulled her hood back over her head. She couldn't believe she had never noticed; what kind of a mother was she anyway?

After that person that had to have been Silver ran away, she had climbed down from the wall to make sure Danny was okay. The ghost boy had very nearly sacrificed his existence for her. With that single selfless act, he had completely changed her opinion of him, and she had found herself praying he was alright. She had been a bit surprised when he collapsed into her arms; it had never occurred to her that ghosts could faint. Then, unable to maintain the disguise while unconscious, a pair of blue rings had passed over him. She'd been holding him and crying ever since.

She knew it happened in the lab accident, when Danny had been caught in the Fenton Portal while it activated. And she thought she knew why he never said anything. They were ghost hunters, after all; the poor boy must have been terrified. Suddenly, the dream Silver had given her made sense, or so she thought. Clearly, it had been a message.

A rottweiler growled at them as they walked by. A few human faces peeked out of a store window. Something screamed in the distance. Something else oozed out of a puddle of blood just ahead and formed into the sickly-looking mainliner. Maddie reached for her ecto-pistol and cursed as she realized she had left it behind. She saw the mainliner pull a syringe out of its back and start to throw it, then she felt something pass through her and found her view blocked by the black and white form of her son.

"Don't you things ever give up?" he demanded irritably. Just as he destroyed the first, a second appeared a few feet away and jumped on top of him. He threw it to the ground and destroyed it as another appeared from the first puddle.

A total of eight creatures appeared, leaving Danny to look like a very strange pincushion. He sighed and start yanking the needles out, then jumped as his mother started to help. "Does it hurt?" she asked quietly.

He shrugged. "It stings a little, but it doesn't really hurt me. I think this liquid is supposed to be deadly, but…" He trailed off as Maddie nodded understandingly.

"What are they?"

It was an attempt to break the ice and make the moment when they actually had to talk about him easier. He thought about telling her what happened, then sighed and just answered the question. "I don't know. They're just called mainliners. On Carnate, they represented people who had been killed by lethal injection."

_They represent addicts here._

Danny whirled around, hoping for some glimpse of his hated adversary. He charged his fists with ectoplasmic energy and yelled, "Get out here, Silver! I know you're here!"

Maddie jerked back, alarmed by her son's sudden rage. This was the first time she had actually been witness to its full force, and it was rather terrifying. Although she knew how he felt, she didn't yet fully understand. And since Silver wasn't as interested in her, she might never have to.

_Now, now, _niño, Silver chastised. _You should thank me. Now, you have no secrets._

He snarled wordlessly and blasted at an obscure flash of white. "Yeah, thanks to you, my mother hates me now! Get out here where I can see you!"

The sound of bright laughter filled the air and their heads. _Oh, no. I'm not stupid. I've seen that look on Hermes' face. I will, however, take this moment to inform you that Cobra is trained on your _madre's_ head, so I suggest you calm down a bit, _fantasma muchacho.

Cobra and Mongoose. He had forgotten she gave her colts those names. He ground his teeth and dismissed the charged ghost energy.

_There now. Isn't that better? Now, if you would like to face me, I would suggest you follow the bouncing mauler_.A silver metal mauler jumped out from behind a derelict car and pawed at the ground, then trotted arrogantly into a nearby building. _Remember, _amigos_. There are lives at stake._ She laughed again and provided them with the image of Jack and Jazz being burned alive.

Maddie's conviction finally broke, and she sank to the ground sobbing. The remaining members of her family were probably dead by now; her own son thought she hated him for being a ghost; and, to make matters worse, an insane psychic had drawn them into some kind of horrible game. She felt a cool pair of gloved hands push her hood back and make an effort to wipe away her years.

"Mom, don't cry," Danny whispered. He jumped as she grabbed him and pulled him close to her, then reverted back to his human form. Neither of them knew how long they stayed like that, but sporadic gunfire informed them that Silver was keeping the monsters off of them. After a while, Maddie stopped, and Danny pulled her to her feet. "Come on. We'd better get inside. She won't wait forever."

He switched back to ghost mode again and started to float inside, but Maddie grabbed his wrist to stop him. "I could never hate you, Danny," she said. He dropped his eyes, then looked back up and smiled.

"I know," he lied.

The so-called temple of self medication turned out to be an old hotel that had been converted into a haven for addicts of all kinds. A few of them were scattered around the foyer, sitting against the walls, pacing, or just standing around shaking. One or two of them watched the passersby, but most were too far gone to notice anything.

They reminded Danny of the mainliners. They had the same hunched posture, though not as pronounced, the same thin and skeletal frames, the same sickly appearance. He had thought the word mainliner was just a random word the inmate who had named them came up with. Now, he wondered if it was actually another term for addict.

"And so," Killjoy's voice seemed to emanate from the very walls. "Our would-be conquering heroes arrive at last. Oh, pardon me, madam. Our hero and heroine. And speaking of heroin, I think far fewer people would be inclined to taste of its fruit if they could see this most heinous result. Don't you agree?"

Maddie had stopped, surprised and bewildered, to look for him when he first started speaking, but Danny had experienced the phenomenon before, in the halls of Killjoy's asylum. He nudged her slightly and gestured for the stairs. With an accepting nod, she followed him. She might have felt out of her league, but he had done this before.

At the top of the stairs, he flinched as something stuck in his abdomen. "Darn it!" he exclaimed, blasting at the legion of mainliners that met him there. "Would you guys just knock it off? Geez, you're more annoying than Box Ghost!"

Maddie couldn't help but laugh at her son's annoyed expression as she helped him remove syringes. Now that she knew who he was, it was kind of easy to forget what he was. "Are you sure you're okay, sweetie?"

"Yeah, I'm alright," he grumbled. "I've been hurt worse."

"And by your own parents, no less," Killjoy broke in.

"Would you shut up already?" Danny yelled, his heart breaking once again at the look of dismay on his mother's face.

"Now, there's no need for that kind of behavior." The doctor sounded affronted, and Danny rolled his eyes. "I am, after all, only trying to help you."

The boy muttered something about Killjoy helping himself off a cliff as he led the way down the hall. Maddie sighed. "He's right," she said quietly, ignoring her son's denials. "Jack and I have been trying to hunt you down since the day you…" She broke off, still unable to say what she thought to be true.

"Mom, I'm not dead. Really."

"You should tell her the truth, my boy," Killjoy remarked, ever the meddler.

"I already know the truth," Maddie responded. She was beginning to wonder why her son so fervently denied being dead. Was it possible he didn't know that he was?

They went through the door at the end of the hall and into a very disturbing room. The walls were lined with Rorschach inkblots that all managed to look like horrible monsters, and on a couch against one wall rested the body of an addict that appeared to have been the subject of the doctor's earlier lobotomy. They moved past it toward the stairs on the other side of the room.

Suddenly, the door at the head of the stairs slammed shut, followed closely by the one behind them. Danny huffed angrily. "Killjoy, let us out!"

"All in good time, my boy. All in good time. But for now, I think a little group therapy is order, don't you?"

A clattering noise behind them heralded the appearance of a pack of slayers. Before they had any kind of chance to react, one of the creatures lunged forward and succeeded in impaling Danny through the stomach. He cried out as it pinned him to the wall and got stuck there. An attempt to go intangible and escape met with the realization that these things didn't need him to be tangible to hurt him. Or this one didn't, at least. There was a strange blue glow surrounding it, and it was quite a bit larger than its fellows. All of this, however, the boy would notice later. Right then, his attention was more on not passing out and turning human again. He didn't he would survive.

Maddie ducked and rolled as one of the creatures tried to swing at her, then noticed a rifle leaning against the wall. She spared a moment to be grateful that there were only two of the normal ones as she dashed across the room. One of them jumped up to clatter across the ceiling; she ducked as it swung its legs down to skewer her, then shot it in the head. It dropped to the ground, stood there for a second, then did something that could only be described as throwing a hissy fit. It stomped its legs and waved its arms, and succeeded in looking like a spoiled child that just got its candy taken away. Then it charged towards her, apparently able to see her even without its eyes.

She was busy fending off the attacks of the remaining normal slayer, but the sound of knives against the hard wood floor alerted her in time to dodge out of the way. The creature speared its brother and finished it off for her. A second shot took it out as well, and she turned attention to the slayer captain.

It hauled against the wall that imprisoned it, screaming it fury. Danny, paler than even a ghost should be, simply hung there with his head down and his eyes clenched tight. Maddie quickly moved to a position where she could shoot the creature without hurting her son if the bullet went through and fired. The ricochet grazed her cheek and embedded in the wall behind her. She moved again and fired at different place, this time angling her rifle so that the ricochet went off in a different direction. She continued to fire at different places on the creature's body until a click announced that the weapon was empty, then dry fired it out of simple despair.

"Get off of my son!" she exclaimed furiously as she began beating the slayer with the rifle barrel. It screamed and gave one last heave against the wall, then tumbled over backwards. Danny hit the ground with a pained gasp, and his transformation rings appeared around him. He managed to force them away, but barely. If that thing could affect him even intangible, the twin wounds it caused probably wouldn't heal simply because he transformed.

The slayer captain disentangled itself from itself and advanced slowly towards Maddie. There was a kind of intelligence in its eyes that its inferiors lacked; it wanted to savor the fear of the weak thing that tried to hurt it.

Danny pried his eyes open to see his mother's predicament. He raised a shaking hand and blasted the creature over and over, completely using up what was left of his energy.

Maddie's back hit the wall; she closed her eyes in fear. She didn't want to die. The slayer captain screamed and something thudded to the ground. She opened her eyes again to see the creature writhing on the floor as it died, and edged around it to reach Danny.

He held his arms across the wounds and didn't move when his mother arrived. His breathing was shallow, and there was human blood mingled with the ectoplasm that oozed between his fingers. Maddie didn't know how, but he had been telling the truth. He was still alive. "Mom," he gasped. "I…" His voice trailed off as he finally lost the battle with his transformation rings and reverted to human form.

"Danny!" Maddie exclaimed, certain that this time he really was dead. Her fears were somewhat alleviated when he drew a shuddering breath and laughed slightly.

"I'm okay," he said dully. He really didn't think the damage would heal when he changed back, but the worst of it seemed to have mended.

"I trust you've resolved your differences?" Killjoy said suddenly. "My, how I have missed our little sessions. It does the heart so good to see that I have truly helped another patient." He went on at great length, as his captive audience tried to tune him out.


	7. Chapter Six

_He glared into the surrounding mists as they parted to reveal a grimy alley. To call it the scene of a violent murder would have been adding undue niceties. There were three women; he thought they must have been prostitutes at one time by what little clothing he could see. The bodies had been butchered, their ribcages lying open to expose their internal organs. Even worse, however, was the fact that they were still moving. One turned her head toward him, her glassy eyes pleading as she mouthed the words, "Kill me."_

_With great effort, he tore his eyes away to see the big man in a trench coat hunched over something at the other end of the alley. The man looked up and turned slightly, then shifted a bit and shuddered in delight. His breathing was short and high pitched, reminiscent of an overly hyper chihuahua. He stood suddenly and turned to face the unwilling spectator._

"_They call me Creeper," he said, his voice tight with mad glee. He panted for a few seconds as though too excited to speak. "Want to know why?" He leaned closer and said in a quiet, confidential voice, "It's because…you see…I'm a CREEPY BASTARD!"_

_He jumped at Creeper's shouted proclamation and the insane bout of giggling that followed. After a few seconds, the man seemed to calm down as much as was possible for him and gestured to the butchered bodies. "NEVER let a woman tell you what she wants! They all want the same thing, anyway." His shoulders heaved with each quick breath, and he grinned. "I gave them exactly what they wanted, and they LIKED IT!" Then he moved away from what he been guarding and said in a more sly tone, "She liked it, too…"_

Danny lunged for Creeper's throat with a wordless cry of rage that died on his lips as the sharp movement reminded him that he was injured. He gasped and clutched a hand to his stomach, but still managed to fight his way to his feet. He knew it had been a dream, that the sight of his mother laid open and writhing on the ground hadn't been real. However, that still begged the question: where had she gone?

He held still and quiet for a few minutes, waiting for the pain to subside somewhat before reverting to his ghostly self. As he drifted through the remains of the crack house, he called out for her, but the muttering of addicts was his only response.

The slurping and chewing noise of a gorger met his ears in the back alley. The scene looked disturbingly like the one from his dream. He flew above the gorger's head, certain it would be feasting on Maddie's broken corpse, but it was only another prostitute. With a sigh of relief, he started to go and time stopped. For just a moment, he saw the four women trying to escape Creeper. The ghostly pimp stood facing away with his coat held open. Danny was grateful that he couldn't see what was beneath it; he could just barely see some tentacle-like appendage with a knife, and that was more than adequate.

"Money grubbing WHORES!" exclaimed the voice of Creeper. "They're all the same: weak, pathetic, selfish. You'll learn that, too, eventually."

"What have you done with Mom?" Danny demanded, but to no avail; a simple memory couldn't answer him. There were three ways out of the alley. Since he highly doubted Creeper could fly and he had come from the right in the dream, he flew left, towards where his quarry had been standing.

Inwardly, he was rather astonished Silver wasn't tormenting him yet. Before he could reflect further, however, he came across another gutted corpse. Creeper had come this way. Danny increased his speed, looking for any sign he could find. Unfortunately, signs abounded. It was as though every woman in the area and no few men had been arranged into a path just for him to follow. After the eighth body, he noticed that every head was turned in his direction. It felt like the lifeless things were watching him fly by. On impulse, he turned around to reassure himself that the last one had not turned its head. He froze; the corpse was still staring at him with those blank eyes that were so like the glass things put on stuffed deer heads.

With a shudder, he grudgingly turned his back on it. There was a good chance that Silver was making him hallucinate, but he wouldn't have been surprised to find that it was real. He wanted to believe that this was just a part of the psychic's mental playground as Carnate had been, but he was afraid that wasn't the case.

She said this wasn't her game. The question was whether or not he believed that.

A scream interrupted his internal musings; he shot forward towards the source, hoping he wasn't too late to save the person. Ahead of him, some flickering light emanated from an alley, and a flaming body burst out of it, running around in frantic circles. The burn victim died before Danny could reach him, but he saw someone else run out followed by a creature that reminded him of the childlike Inferna.

It was vaguely humanoid with six appendages that sprouted from its shoulders like wings. The "wings" were in flames, but the body of the creature looked more like burning ember. It stalked after the escapee, leaning over slightly like the raptors from Jurassic Park. It screeched in much the same sounding voice and raised its arms. The man made the mistake of looking back; he stumbled and fell, cowering. Just before the flames reached him, he closed his eyes tightly and so was unable to see the black and white blur as it hit him and carried him safely into the air.

Danny gasped at the sudden weight against his wounded torso, but managed to carry the man to safety before nearly dropping him. "Are you okay?" Danny asked as he checked to see that they were out of the creature's range. He thought the man looked familiar, but couldn't place him right off.

As soon as he was released, the man sank slowly to the ground and put his head between his knees. He was muttering something that sounded like the Catholic Rosary prayers. Danny leaned down and reached out to put a hand on his shoulder. "Um, sir? Are you going to be alright?"

"I just had the weirdest dream," came the muffled reply. "I dreamt I was being chased by an arsonist, and then I was flying through the air, and there was this little white haired kid there…"

Danny blinked and took a few steps back. "I'm sorry to have to tell this," he said, unsure whether it had been a joke or not. "But that wasn't a dream."

There was a pause, then, "I was afraid of that." The man looked up and stared at him, and he finally realized who this was.

"Hey, you're Ed Johnson!" the ghost boy exclaimed. "Right? You're the head of the Paranormal Society."

Ed continued to stare, then he stood. "Are you a…a ghost?" he asked carefully.

Duh. "Um, yeah." Tired of being looked down at with those suddenly calculating eyes, Danny floated up to just above eye level. Ed walked around him, inspecting him much like one would a new horse or cow. The boy turned with him, not liking this at all.

_Maybe you should have left this one,_ niño.

He certainly was not going to leave some poor human to be killed, even if the man was looking at him like he was a science project. Silver couldn't hear him think, of course, but he wasn't about to answer her aloud.

Ed chuckled quietly, then shook his head and smiled. "I don't believe it," he muttered. "The Amity Park ghost boy. Inviso-Bill."

Danny groaned. "It's Phantom, not Inviso-Bill. Ugh, that name's going to haunt me, isn't it?" He briefly entertained the notion of introducing whoever had come up with it to Klemper before he noticed the look of complete amazement on Ed's face.

"You're cognizant?"

_Yes, stupid people should definitely be left to die._

About to give the man a sarcastic reply, Danny clamped his mouth shut and rolled his eyes instead. "Look, I don't suppose you've seen my-uh, I mean, Maddie Fenton around, have you? I kind of lost track of her."

"Why do you haunt the Fentons?" Ed asked curiously.

The boy stared at him for a few seconds, then shook his head and started to go. "I don't have time for this; I've got to find Maddie. Come with me if you want."

Ed ran to catch up. "I'm really very curious," he confessed. "Why are you helping me?"

What was that, the question of the year? "You know," Danny said, unable to hide the irritated sigh in his voice. "Just about every person I've ever met has asked me that, and it gets really annoying after a while."

_Here, let me help with that…_

Ed gasped and looked around. "Who said-"

Suddenly, a marksman burst out of the ground right in front them. Danny grabbed his terrified companion and made them both intangible, then finished the thing off. "You're slipping, Silver," he called, unsure whether to be amused or worried.

It felt like a bee had gotten loose in his head. In and of itself, that wasn't very worrisome; Silver's mental voice was always accompanied by a buzzing noise. Kat had once theorized that it was her regular thought process overlapping the telepathy. No, the sudden cause for concern was the fact that it was not followed by a superior-sounding comment.

Silver's alarmed scream cut through the sky as it tore through the boy's mind, leaving him with a blinding migraine. She came sliding out of a nearby alley, back flipped onto a car's trunk, then lost her footing and landed practically on her head behind it. Ed cried out and joined her behind the car, more to hide than to help. Danny shook his head one last time to clear it and saw what had frightened them both.

Creeper filled the mouth of the alley, wild-eyed and grinning. "Hm…" he mused, his shoulders shaking with quiet laughter. "Now, aren't you an exotic one? Oh, I'd like to add you to my collection of whores!"

"Leave her alone!" Danny yelled, hovering between Creeper and the car. Inwardly, he was astonished by that. He had reacted to the threat to another's life before he remembered that said life was responsible for a great deal of mental anguish.

"Yeah, what he said, _pendejo_!" Silver agreed. She waved one of her pistols menacingly.

"Shut up," the boy said before turning back to Creeper. "Where's my mom?"

Creeper shifted his weight, and something moved rather disturbingly under his coat. "She's keeping me company," he admitted mysteriously after a few seconds excited breathing. "I think I'll keep her." He turned and walked into the darkness of the alley. Danny shot after him, but he had vanished. Angrily, he whirled around to find that Silver had knocked Ed unconscious and was gone as well.

_Kill him twice for me,_ amante, she whispered, giving him the image of Maddie being dragged through an open manhole cover.


	8. Chapter Seven

_She looked around the darkened mists, aware of the heavy breathing but ignoring it for now. "What do you want with Danny?" she called out._

"_Danny's a good boy," Silver replied as she faded into view. Her smile tried to be tender, but only succeeded in looking predatory. "I love him as though he were my own, and I only have his best interests at heart."_

"_You stay away from my son!"_

"_Ah,_ madre_, it's been a pleasure. But he's mine now: my_ amante…_my lover…"_

"_And you're mine," whispered a chilling voice right next to her ear.

* * *

_

Danny lowered the unconscious Ed to the ground and gave a pained sigh; carrying the man around had not helped his healing process any. As he turned to survey his location, he wondered why Silver had suddenly decided to be helpful, suspecting that it had something to with the fact that Creeper had almost gotten her. Much as he didn't like the murderous ghost, he had to smile at that. It proved Silver was fallible after all and made her seem more human.

But even more than that, it proved that she could be beaten.

A gasp drew his attention back to Ed, who jerked awake looking around frantically. He actually squealed when he saw Danny, then relaxed as he remembered the boy was a good ghost.

Danny smiled slightly and leaned down. "You okay?"

Ed returned the smile and rubbed the back of his head. "I think that young woman gave me a concussion," he confessed, abashed.

"You're lucky she didn't do worse." Danny waited for the man to find his footing, then gestured toward the sewer. "I have to go down there. If you want, I can set on a roof or something until I rescue Maddie."

"If you don't mind, I think I'd be safer with you."

"Just stay behind me," the boy said with shrug as he led the way down. He blasted a mainliner before it could notice him and made sure Ed was down safely, then drifted through the disgusting environment. He tried to think of a time he had been somewhere worse; sadly, nothing came to mind. Ed muttered something behind him, but he didn't pay much attention.

He was afraid for his mother. She was down here somewhere with a sadistic murderer that made Haight look almost pleasant, and he was relatively certain that it was his fault. He couldn't think of any particular reason for it, but it nagged at him nonetheless, a vague feeling that there was something he should have done. He pushed it out of mind; agonizing over it wasn't going to help Maddie get free of Creeper. Doing something about it would.

A bumble bee ran around in his head for a few seconds, but Silver must have changed her mind. Ed clapped a hand over his mouth as a few rats nearly startled a scream out of him. A slayer dropped down from the ceiling and was promptly blasted. Something screeched from deeper in the sewers.

It was too quiet. That really should have been a good thing, but it made the boy uneasy. Monsters traveled in packs, but he had only met two, and from two different types at that. Something was wrong other than the obvious.

"What do you know about Creeper?" he asked, just to break the silence. His voice sounded unnaturally loud in the stillness.

Ed gave him a suspicious glance, then shrugged. "Oh, not much more than you, I'm sure," he answered in a guarded tone.

Danny returned the glance and decided not to press the issue. He had dealt with enough evil masterminds to know when someone was hiding something, but it might simply have meant that Ed didn't trust him. It was probably just the uneasy feeling he had since arriving here that made his traveling companion seem suspicious.

A female scream split through the sewers, followed by the sound of Creeper's excited gasping. "Mom!" Danny yelled fearfully. Completely forgetting about Ed, he shot forward to follow the sound of Maddie's voice and time stopped. She appeared a few feet away, her hand stretched out to reach him. Behind her loomed Creeper, engulfed in darkness. Then the image was gone, and Danny stopped short with a wordless cry of rage. "Let her go, Creeper!" he demanded.

Creeper giggled, his voice coming from everywhere. "Oh, does she…does she…mean something to you? Is she important to you? Does….does…does she take care of you? …Like a good WHORE?"

"She's not a whore!" Danny blasted into the darkness at random as the sound of mad laughter faded away. Sadly, he didn't manage to hit anything. He hovered with one hand protectively over his injured stomach and the other clenched into a tight fist, breathing heavily from the exertion, which made the pain worse. He closed his eyes and tried to calm down.

Ed walked forward, ostensibly to offer comfort, although he really just wanted an excuse to actually touch a ghost. "Are you okay?" he asked.

Danny gasped and jerked away as Ed touched one of the wounds on his back, then grinned apologetically. "Sorry. I got stabbed earlier. We better go after him."

The scientist regarded the ghost boy for a few minutes as they progressed. He had a multitude of questions, of course; who wouldn't, faced with a real ghost? There was one in particular, but he wanted to lead into it. "You got stabbed in the back?" he asked instead.

"Um…all the way, through, actually. In two different places."

"What could hurt a ghost?"

"A blue slayer."

Ed nodded understandingly. He, personally, had never seen one of the monsters that had been dubbed "captains", but he had heard of them from several reliable sources. Supposedly, they glowed with an ethereal light and were impervious to all manner of weapons; he theorized that they were the ghosts of the various monsters.

He continued to pelt the increasingly irritable ghost boy with all manner of questions, very few of which the boy could actually answer. Finally, having assuaged most of his curiosity, Ed asked, "Why did you call Maddie Fenton 'Mom'?"

Danny froze. He supposed he could tell the man the truth, but the thought made him cringe. He hadn't even been able to tell his parents; was telling a complete stranger really any easier? He looked around as though an answer might jump out of hiding.

Ed grinned, thinking he had the whole mystery solved. "It's just that you look a lot like their son…"

"Their…son?" Danny laughed nervously. "Yeah, you know, I…I get that a lot…heh…"

The man nodded superiorly. "So that's why you haunt them. You're Danny's twin brother, aren't you?"

Danny opened his mouth to deny whatever had been said, then what he had heard clicked and he shut it again. "Um…no…" He took off again, but Ed could be very persistent when he wanted.

"Come on, what's your real name? I know it's not Phantom. Is it…David?"

"No."

"Donny?"

"Nope."

"Devon?"

Danny mumbled something under his breath. "It's Danny, okay? Danny Phantom."

There was a short pause. "They gave you both the same name?"

"We're not-"

He was cut off by a loud bang and threw himself forward to just avoid being hit by a speeding bullet. Ed whimpered as the growling of a dozen maulers heralded the presence of Copperfield

"You again?" Danny exclaimed. He was just about to point out that the dogs couldn't hurt him until he realized that, in addition to being larger than normal maulers, this breed was surrounded by a blue glow. He gulped, grabbed Ed, and shot straight up, only to slam most painfully against the ceiling and fall back down.

"I'm not one of those mindless malefactors, boy," Copperfield pointed out. "I learn from my mistakes. The woman may have eluded me for now, but you certainly will not." He used the barrel of his rifle to point at his quarry and addressed the hounds. "Sic'em!"

Ed cried out and tried to run, but only succeeded in falling on his face; fortunately, the area was relatively free of muck. He put his hands over his eyes and waited for the hounds to close in for the kill.

Danny blasted the one in the lead, then grabbed Ed by the back of the shirt and shot forward through the close tunnels. The man peeked out from between his fingers and yelled fearfully as a wall came within inches of his face. After that, he just kept his eyes tightly shut and let the ghost boy do the work.

"You are only making it worse on yourselves!" Copperfield called. "The more you run my hounds, the hungrier they get! And they are vicious when they are hungry!"

"Then I'll just have to make sure they don't catch us, won't I?" Danny returned. This was, without a doubt, the most nerve-racking flight he had ever taken. He was going as fast as he could, but the maulers were still right behind him. If he slowed down at all, they'd catch him, but if he didn't he was afraid he would crash. And at 112 miles per hour, he might survive, but Ed certainly wouldn't.

_The tunnel opens onto a water station up ahead; I suggest you go up._

He passed something white; although he was flying too fast to see any details, he knew who it had to be. "Why should I trust you?" he yelled, unsure whether or not she could actually hear him.

_You're so cute when you're confused…_

Was she trying to flirt?

A huge pipe suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Danny thought he screamed, but he wasn't paying enough attention to be sure. Rather than try to faze through it and risk not being able to, he decided to trust Silver on the grounds that they were both dead anyway. Fortunately, she had been telling the truth. He ducked through another tunnel to escape the gunfire, then dropped Ed and collapsed to the ground. Somewhere along the way, he had started bleeding again, which he noted with an irritated sigh.

_Well done, _amante!

"Come on," Danny said, standing. "Let's get out of here before anything else decides to chase us around." He pulled the whimpering man to his feet and hauled him along.

* * *

_She held her hands over her face as the image of Danny faded. A cold ring of metal lightly touched her temple as her tormentor said, "You see? I won't let Copperfield have him. He's mine, and I won't let anyone stand in my way. Not even you…"_


	9. Chapter Eight

Danny finished off the last of the mainliners and became tangible again, then tried to tug his hand free of Ed's grasp. If the situation had been less dire, he might have laughed at the man. Maybe he was just used to his fearless parents, but a ghost hunter who was terrified of the paranormal seemed very bizarre. At some point along the way, between a pack of slayers and a triggerman that had somehow gotten itself stuck in the narrow tunnel, Ed had grabbed the boy's hand and refused to let go. He now had it clasped in a death's grip.

"Um, they're gone," Danny informed him. "Dude, you're making my hand go numb."

The man's grip loosed ever so slightly, and he looked up. "You're a ghost."

"Thanks for the update," the ghost boy replied dryly. "Look, you can hold on to my shoulder if you want, but I really need my hand back." After several moments, he rolled his eyes and added, "Because it's very difficult to fight one-handed, and if more of those mauler captains show up, being intangible is not going to help either of us." Several more seconds went by before the older man actually complied.

"Weak!" Creeper exclaimed, startling a shout out of Ed. "Even the little boy's stronger than you, you weak little PUSSY! Men should be strong! Tough! And those who aren't…" He trailed off, giggling mysteriously.

The travelers had barely gone two steps when four knives burst out at them from a side tunnel. Danny shoved Ed back and flinched as one of the blades passed harmlessly through his white belt. He looked back to see Creeper close his coat over the bladed appendages, a manic grin on his face. There was a set of bars separating the two; as Creeper turned to walk away, Danny tried to go intangible and follow him and slammed straight into them.

"Darn it!" he muttered, rubbing his nose. As soon as his enemy was out of sight, he could pass through with no problem.

"That's weird," Ed mentioned, still breathless from his near-death experience. "It's like their presence cancels out your ability to faze-shift."

"I don't think that's it." Danny sighed and shook his head. "It's more like they're making the walls so I can't faze through them." He narrowed his eyes, then grabbed Ed and pulled him through the bars. He'd been thinking ever since he first met the spirits of Carnate, and the sight of Creeper walking away had finally convinced him to theorize aloud. "I don't think Creeper's a ghost."

Ed raised an eyebrow. "Then he's a very old man."

"No, I don't think he's alive. I just don't think he's really dead. Or Copperfield." Or Killjoy, Horace, and Haight, he added silently.

"Well, come on, Phantom. You should know better than anyone. Either you're alive, or you're dead. There's no in between."

Danny couldn't help but grin. The man was half right, anyway; he did know better than anyone. "But what if there is?" he persisted, growing serious again. "What if there's some force that's creating these monsters? What if it keeps things from moving on properly?" He let that sink in while he tried to remember what Silver had said all those weeks ago. "Silver told me, a while back, that everything that ever died over on Carnate Island was still alive in some twisted form. And the same thing has happened here."

Ed listened with the patience of someone used to inane babbling, then shook his head stubbornly. "There is no in between," he said again. Danny gave an exasperated huff and let it drop. The man had a harder head than Jack.

A silver metal slayer appeared ahead. By the lack of a reaction, Danny correctly assumed that he was the only one who could see Silver. She flipped one knife in a lazy wave and strutted off to the right. Against his better judgment, the boy followed.

The barking of maulers echoed from somewhere very far away. Three bloated copses lay in a pool of tinted red water. Danny yelped as Ed gasped and clutched at him; he shoved the man away a bit harder than he intended to. The buzzing noise in his head had grown louder, and Silver still refused to actually speak. It was grating on his already strained nerves, and the fact that it reminded him of desperate sobbing didn't help.

Creeper breathed, but didn't show himself. Occasionally, he giggled. Ed's nails were digging into the boy's arm by the time a collapsed section of roadway led them back to the relatively fresh air of the upper world. He collapsed gratefully to the wet pavement, but Danny's eyes were fixed on the three people across the blocked cul-de-sac.

Silver had left her body somewhere, as usual, and was sitting on the roof of someone's porch. Below her stood Creeper; his foul mood at not being able to affect her astral form dissipated at the sight of Danny and Ed. Behind him, lying slumped in a wicker chair was the unconscious form of Maddie.

_I kept him off her for you, _amante, Silver said. _Now, he's your problem._ And with that, she vanished.

"Stupid whore," Creeper muttered. He strode forward a few steps and stroked the front of his coat. "They really just…just PISS me off! Women are worthless!" He stopped to pant, but Danny interrupted him before he could go on.

"Leave us alone, and let us go!" he demanded.

The ex-pimp took a few more steps forward and snickered as Ed retreated back into the sewer slightly. "If you want her back…COME AND GET HER!" He threw open his coat, and Danny lunged back to avoid the…

It wasn't what he originally thought, although whether it was better or worse was still up for debate. Growing out of Creeper's chest were four scantily clad, emaciated, deformed prostitutes with their arms melted against their sides and knives that stuck out of their mouths. They stretched out to reach him, glassy eyes desperate and pleading. Danny stared, horrified, for a few seconds too long and was nearly impaled again.

"Do you like my collection?" Creeper laughed. He strode forward egotistically, letting his prostitutes do the work just like all pimps everywhere.

"You're sick and disgusting, Creeper!" Danny accused. He couldn't attack; he couldn't bring himself to hurt the women, even if they were part of his enemy. Even as they lunged out to kill him, they silently begged for his help. The pimp simply laughed and sped up his advance.

Unnoticed, Ed found a hiding place behind some little kid's tire fort to watch the one-sided fight. He couldn't believe the ghost boy wasn't attacking. Creeper was a dangerous malefactor, and he didn't honestly believe Danny would win. But why did the boy refuse to even try?

He shrugged. It wasn't really his place to dictate what the boy should or should not do. He spared a moment to regret that Maddie wasn't going to survive, then climbed over a pile of fallen bricks to freedom.

* * *

"_He's the only person who ever beat me, you know?" Silver mentioned idly. "In fact, he's the first person who even got close enough to see me in five years."_

_The image of Danny and Creeper's battle shimmered like a Hollywood dream montage. Ignoring Silver, she crept forward, one hand clasped unconsciously over her heart. She didn't understand why Danny didn't fight, and quietly willed him to do so._

"_So young…when he first came to my island, I just thought it would make an interesting change of pace. I didn't really expect him to get past the first round of slayers, but he surprised me with those powers."_

_The image winked out. She whirled around angrily and demanded, "Bring him back!" Her tormentor didn't seem to hear._

"_By the time he found his way to me, I knew," the psychic continued, a dreamy look in her frozen eyes. "I knew he was the one, the one I've been waiting for all this time. I took so many lives, and I'm still so lonely. When I take his, I won't be anymore. I can feel it. He'll be part of me."_

"_You leave my son alone!"_

_Again, Silver didn't even seem to know she had said anything. Instead, she contrived to look worried and muttered, "Hurry up and beat him, _amante…_"

* * *

_

Creeper panted excitedly as one of his prostitutes finally caught Danny across the arm. It wasn't very deep and healed almost immediately, but it did reinforce the notion that those things could hurt him if he didn't avoid them. The boy floated into the air to avoid falling back into the sewer and hovered there, a few feet out of Creeper's reach. He paid no attention to the half-disappointed and half-angry ranting while he tried to think.

He could just fly over, grab his mother, and get away. It would be easy to escape, but it also meant that Creeper could follow them. He wanted this to be the end.

"You're weak like a little girl!" Creeper taunted in a sing-song voice.

_Hurry up and beat him, _amante…

But he couldn't, not without hurting the unfortunate women. Their eyes begged for him to help them, save them, but he didn't know how. They were part of Creeper, and he couldn't hurt one without hurting the other.

An image flashed across his mind, though for once, it was a memory of his own making. It was the dream image of a woman with those same pleading eyes as she quietly prayed for death. Creeper hid behind his women, forced them to fight for him, exploited them, and denied them any peace. He knew what he had to do, but that didn't make it any easier.

Danny shook his head and sighed miserably. "It's over, Creeper," he yelled as he charged and threw an ectoplasmic energy blast.

The big man cried out in surprise as he was thrown backwards. He smiled and started to get back to his feet, but he never got the chance. Dodging through the waving blades, Danny slammed into him hard enough to carry them both through a wall. Something slashed across his back; he barely noticed as he rained punches on his foe. "No one hurts my mom," he said angrily, emphasizing each word with another blow.

Creeper shrieked as he tried to defend himself against the ghost boy's attack. After the first few minutes of their fight, he had come to the conclusion that Danny was too weak to fight back. Then this started. He finally caught the boy around the neck and threw him off.

Danny charged another blast and froze as a dozen maddened eyes appeared in the darkness behind Creeper. The pimp leered and opened his mouth, but whatever he had been about to say died on his lips as hands reached to grab him and dozens of voices whispered the word, "Revenge..."

"Hey! No!" he exclaimed. "You're MY whores! MINE! You don't turn on me!" Danny dropped his fist and watched as the four prostitutes turned to impale their master while his other victims reached out to pull him screaming into the darkness.

_Take a life and you make it part of yourself,_ Silver whispered. _A dangerous thing to do when the lives you take despise you. You reminded the exploited ones that they still have power. Well done._

Danny turned away. A few rottweilers had gathered to growl menacingly as he went to check on Maddie. Doubtless, Copperfield and his maulers weren't far behind. Calls for Ed to come out elicited no response. He transformed into a human and then back to ghost to repair a little of the damage he had taken, then carried his mother to the relative safety of a nearby roof.


	10. Chapter Nine

Maddie carefully opened her eyes and looked around. She was on a roof, and her head was pounding. There was, thankfully, no sign of Creeper. Danny hovered on his side a few feet away, his eyes closed; when she went to sit up, he opened them. "They didn't hurt you, did they?" he asked in a voice that promised full retribution for the slightest bruise.

She shook her head. "Creeper?"

"Dealt with."

At the look on the boy's face, she decided not to press for to details. Instead, she stood and dusted herself off. "And Silver?"

Danny rolled his eyes and shrugged. "Who cares? The less I hear from her, the better." He paused to stare at the ground for a second, then threw himself around his mother's neck. "I'm glad you're okay," he whispered.

_Now, if that isn't just the cutest thing…_

Maddie shook her head, a gesture for her son to ignore the interloper, and led him to the edge of the roof. "I don't suppose you learned anything about your father and Jazz," she mentioned hopefully.

"No," he sighed, lowering her to the ground. "I found Ed Johnson, though." He told her almost everything that happened while they were separated, although he left out the most gruesome bits. "I guess he ran away while I was fighting Creeper," he finished. "I was afraid to leave you to look for him."

"That's alright, sweetie." Maddie found a rifle and spare ammunition in an abandoned police car. With unexpected expertise, she reloaded and cocked it, then sighted down the barrel. She gave a satisfied nod and turned back to her surprised son. "We'll look for him while we go. Come on."

Danny grinned, grateful that his mother was on his side for once. Unfortunately, his good mood was interrupted by an explosion over his head as a pair of arsonists jumped from a window to land between him and Maddie. Now that he wasn't more concerned with rescuing a helpless bystander, he was able to see that the creatures had two heads and four legs. It looked like two people had been fused together by the searing heat. One of them was larger than the other; it didn't have the misty dark blue glow of the other captains, but its six wing-like appendages glowed with white hot intensity.

_I've missed watching you fight,_ amante, Silver whispered. _It makes me...heh…hot…_

A gunshot rang out; Danny had just enough time to make sure it was his mother doing the shooting before the arsonist captain was on top of him. It was fast. Very fast. It bounced against his ghost shield, which he then dropped in favor of attacking. Almost before he could even raise his arm, the thing was on him again. He grappled with the burning talons for a few minutes until he was able to blast it off of him and fly to safety above its head.

He glanced over to see Maddie just finish off her attacker and something exploded in his face. The arsonist captain threw another fireball at him and succeeded in knocking him out of the sky. Rather than press its advantage, however, it slammed its arms into the ground and created two mini explosions that reformed into another pair of normal arsonists. The boy called a warning, but Maddie was already moving again.

The arsonists were both difficult to defeat and painfully easy. They advanced with unnatural speed, trailing short-lived flames in their wake. In the interests of not wasting ammunition, Maddie waited until they were mere inches away before she fired. It was dangerous, and it was scary; but at that close range, it took care of them in one shot.

She fired an experimental shot at the captain and sighed miserably when it bounced off. She hated being helpless while her baby was in danger, but instead of standing around worrying, she edged past the supernatural duel to reload her rifle at the police car. It was just as well that she did, since the captain took that moment to create two more subordinates.

While his opponent was otherwise occupied, Danny slammed into it fists first, receiving a painful blast of heat for his trouble. At least these creatures didn't come back to life like the Inferna did, although the captain's ability to endlessly spawn reinforcements made it a moot point. It screeched and jumped high up on the side of the building to throw itself on Danny, who managed to duck underneath it. He blasted it again, then fired a constant beam of energy at it. It screamed, shuddered, and finally exploded.

"A brilliant climax, to say the least!" Killjoy exclaimed as mother and son ascertained each other's well being. "However, you may find it rather difficult to progress with the streets congested as they are."

Maddie looked around. Ahead, the road had caved in. To the right, a burning building had collapsed to block the way. She glanced at Danny, who shook his head, unsure whether to be amused or irritated. "Um, Killjoy?" he called, laughing. "I can fly and go intangible."

A second or two went by. "Ah, yes," the doctor muttered. "How positively foolish of me to have forgotten. Very well!" A pair of doors opened in the building to their left. "I suppose I shall then humbly request that you come into my theater. The direction you require is this way, anyway, and I believe it will save you some time."

They looked at each other, both silently wondering if they could trust Killjoy. His motives may have been pure, but his methods left a great deal to be desired. Maddie fought down the desire to take charge of the situation and protect her son. This situation required a fighter, not a mother, and she had no idea what to expect. Danny had been through this before, and he knew what he was doing. As much as it galled her to admit it, he didn't really need her. "What do you think?" she asked quietly.

He seemed surprised, but quickly shook it off and glared into the darkened theater. "No slayers," he told the doctor.

"My dear boy, I can with the utmost honesty guarantee you that there will be no slayers."

Danny wasn't sure he liked how Killjoy worded that, but he did have to admit. Aside from throwing monsters at him in some misguided attempt to heal his perfectly intact psyche, the man had never been hostile. Uncaring, sure. Depraved, most definitely. But never hostile.

In fact, thinking back to all their meetings, Danny had to admit that Killjoy had helped in his own weird way. More or less.

Against his better judgment, he led the way in.

The place was trashed. Slayers had been through at some point, leaving the walls and floor covered in pinpricks and slash marks. A few dozen people had apparently been using it as a hiding spot. A lone gorger stood looking around stupidly, unable to decide where to begin in all the bloody bounty. An ectoplasmic energy blast and a rifle shot felled the creature in less than a second. Danny and Maddie entered cautiously, alert for any attacks. Neither was surprised when the doors slammed shut behind them.

"And you have come at last," Killjoy announced happily. "Long have I been waiting for a patient to match my last. Alas, you are not he. But! You do make for an interesting case study, my dear boy. Something to pass the time…"

Something growled from far too close, and they looked at the top of a set of steps to see Copperfield, a pack of maulers at his heels. "So you did beat Creeper," he said. "Good. That means it's just us now."

There was not a lot of room to escape in the lobby, but Maddie ran and fired at the same time. She was pleased to see that the rifle did considerably more damage that her lost ecto-pistol. While she took care of the endless supply of maulers, Danny focused on the man himself.

Copperfield fired and vanished to reappear somewhere else, fire, and vanish again. Fortunately, he seemed content to let his maulers deal with Maddie and never fired at her. Unfortunately, she did not have an infinite supply of ammunition; this fight needed to end fast. Danny spun around to find his enemy, but he was too busy dodging gun fire to attack.

"Sometimes one must sacrifice in order to gain, yes?" Killjoy said suddenly. He actually said more, but Danny stopped listening. When Copperfield appeared again, he simply blasted and didn't bother trying to dodge. The hunter was knocked backwards, but Danny was unable to press the advantage.

Maddie saw what happened. She only had one bullet left, and she used it on Copperfield before he could disappear again, then started welding the rifle like a club. Danny slammed into his quarry and blasted him again, but the hunter dodged and vanished. The maulers were easily defeated after that, and none came to take their place.

"You win, child," said Copperfield's disembodied voice. "But I will not underestimate you a second time. Next time we meet, I will be the victor."

After a few more moments, Danny called out, "Killjoy!"

"I distinctly recall promising there would be no slayers," the doctor reminded him. "Furthermore, I am very disappointed. I gave you this opportunity to have some closure, and you have completely squandered it."

"Well, you're not a very good doctor, are you?" Maddie asked loftily.

"I beg your pardon, madam!"

Danny snickered at the impish look on his mother's face. "A good doctor inspires trust," she said, quoting something Jazz had said once. "It doesn't inspire much trust to throw monsters and madmen at your patients, does it?"

"Bah! My methods are perhaps a bit unorthodox, but I have never yet failed to cure a patient!" Lost in his ranting, he didn't seem to notice that they had found the back door.

"That was cool!" Danny exclaimed once they were in the back alley.

Maddie smiled at the praise, and started to answer, but movement ahead stopped them both as Ed Johnson peeked out from behind some stacked crates. "You guys are alive?" he asked, stunned.

They exchanged glances and Danny shook his head. "More or less," he replied.

"We're glad you're okay, Mr. Johnson," Maddie said sincerely.

"Ed, please." Ed stepped out of hiding to shake hands in greeting. "You have no idea how glad I am to see a pair of friendly faces. Let's get out of this alley before the gorgers come back."

They left quickly, but Danny couldn't help but wonder how the man managed to survive this long with no weapons or any ability to defend himself.

* * *

A/N: I would like to take this moment to say that, as much as I would like to claim Creeper, he's not mine. Silver and Ed are my only creations.And the mauler captains.


	11. Chapter Ten

It was quiet, and had been for some time. It was shortly before noon; the sun kept most of the monsters away. Only arsonists were willing to venture out in the light, and a lone triggerman captain that couldn't even call for reinforcements. Somewhere behind them, maulers bayed out their insatiable hunger. Copperfield was following them.

Ed had taken to jumping at every sound. Danny suspected Silver was talking to him, but he couldn't be sure. The man was remarkably close-mouthed when he wanted to be.

"Danny?" Maddie whispered. He drifted down to hear her better. "Where would Silver be right now?"

He considered that. Despite being able to speak telepathically, the psychic couldn't read minds. She could walk out of her body, but he didn't know if she could actually hear that way. Finally, he simply shrugged. "Why do you want to know?"

"I'm tired of this 'game' of hers. If we knew where she was, we could make her tell us where Jack and Jazz are."

Danny smiled slightly. He knew exactly how she felt.

Audible, high-pitched laughter cut through the silence and made them all jump. A derelict car rested just to their left. From behind it ran two little children: a dark-haired Mexican boy and a white-haired albino girl. "You can't catch me!" yelled the girl as they ran around a corner and vanished.

"Silver's memories," Danny explained. "That was her and her husband when they were kids. She must have been here before."

"So what do we do?" Ed asked, his voice shaking.

The boy looked at him like he was a complete moron. "Follow them."

Maddie took the lead in case it was a trap. Since the maulers were still behind them and Danny didn't really think he was, he was only too happy to let her. Ed cowered between them, shaking and whimpering. They had found another police car and offered him a weapon, but he had refused for some obscure reason.

_Do you know whose game we're playing, yet, _amante?

He had an idea. He hoped he was wrong, but there was something very off about Ed and his behavior.

_I used to hate it here. Father brought us here on his vacations. It was never as interesting as Carnate. After mother…well, died, for lack for a better term. After she died, he stopped coming here. I'm glad she died._

There was very little she could say that still had the power to horrify him. Coming from anyone else, he may have been shocked, but not from Silver. Even the, at first, near-constant barrage of the gruesome deaths of assorted family members only evoked a feeling of mild annoyance. Apparently realizing this, she hadn't tried in a few hours, for which he was grateful. He didn't like not being able to feel grief and rage at the thought of his parents and sister being murdered.

Was this how Plasmius felt? Was that Silver's plan, to turn him into someone like Plasmius, who could happily order another person's death? Was it working?

They continued to follow the children at play around a winding circuit of abandoned city blocks. None of them spoke, each lost in their own thoughts. When they finally found their way into a large cul-de-sac littered with broken televisions, the only one who was surprised was Ed.

"Tell me, my dear boy," Killjoy said from the cracked screens. "Are you ready to progress? A miracle worker I may be, but I can do nothing to help until you prove you truly want it."

"Danny," Maddie began, but he shook his head.

"I have to do this."

"Do what?" Ed broke in, tearing his eyes away from a monitor. "What are we doing?" He was subsequently ignored.

"I forbid it!" Maddie exclaimed. "I'm not to let you get yourself killed."

"I'm halfway there already!" Danny shot back. His mother flinched at the reminder. "I wish you hadn't found out," he went on in a quieter tone. "But I'm not human anymore, and you are. I'll survive; you won't."

The red goggles hid her eyes quite well, but her voice betrayed her tears. "Be careful," she whispered.

"What are we doing?" Ed asked again, completely ruining the mood.

"You're hiding," Danny answered. He waited until they found their way up a partially collapsed fire escape before he turned back to the impatient doctor. "I'm ready." Killjoy nodded and his monitors winked out.

"You'd best make it easy on yourself," said Copperfield; Danny turned to face him. "I have only been beaten once, and I assure you that it will not happen again."

The boy charged his fists with ectoplasmic energy. "Are you going to talk or fight?"

Copperfield smirked and strode past his salivating hounds to vanish just as Danny's first attack reached him. The boy spun around, expecting an attack from behind. He did not expect to have the butt of Copperfield's rifle slammed into his face. However, if the man though he was going down that easily, he was destined for disappointment.

The boy grabbed his opponent by the wrists and threw him across the alley. Surprised, Copperfield almost didn't dodge the twin follow-up blasts. He ducked and rolled out of the way, then quickly fired his rifle in Danny's general direction. Danny shot upwards and called, "Why us?"

"Your ancestors escaped me," the slave hunter explained. "Although the slaves they helped did not."

For just a moment, Danny saw the scene as must have looked all those years ago: a handful of slaves crying out as they were eaten alive by starving, rabid rottweilers while Copperfield looked on in approval. Then the moment was gone and a bullet grazed his arm.

He went invisible on the off chance that his opponent would actually be unable to see him; it seemed to work. Copperfield scanned the area looking for him, becoming increasingly irate with every passing moment until something slammed into him from behind and sent his rifle flying.

"Got you!" Danny yelled victoriously. Of course, now the question was what to do with him. Unfortunately, the matter was taken out of his hands by a high-pitched whistle. A dozen hunger-maddened mauler captains rushed forward. Although the boy tried to dodge above them, one of them managed to get its mouth around his foot and pulled him back down.

He kicked at it unsuccessfully and cried out as another sank its teeth into his other calf. They were trying to eat him. They were actually trying to eat him alive. Intellectually, he knew that's what they did, but it had not really hit him until this moment. He was about to be eaten alive.

Well, he wasn't going down with a fight.

He blasted at the dogs, but for every one that he dislodged, another caught him. It didn't just hurt; it burned like fire or poison. Part of him heard the tell-tale click of a rifle being cocked. He couldn't get into air properly with the maulers hanging onto him. It wasn't that they were too heavy; it was more like they were attached to the ground, except that they weren't. With barely a split second to decide, Danny dove into the middle of them as the bullet tore through the air above him. He managed to shove the creatures away using his ghost shield then, while they scrambled to their feet, flew out of reach and started blasting at Copperfield again.

Bueno muchacho_…_ Silver whispered. _Good boy…_

Danny ignored her, something he was getting better at, and focused on locating Copperfield. Suddenly, he froze. Maddie had a stubborn set to her mouth while Ed squeezed his eyes closed and moaned. Behind them, Copperfield stood with his rifle alternating slowly between the back of their heads. "This way, slowly," he said. "Or these two get it."

"Danny!" Maddie called. She was interrupted by a gunshot.

Time seemed to stand still for just a moment, then the maulers started howling in glee as their former master toppled off the fire escape. Maddie caught an unconscious Ed as he nearly did likewise. Danny rushed to them both. "Are you okay?" he demanded.

_I told you,_ pendejo! Silver exclaimed. "The _fantasma muchacho_ is mine!"

They looked toward the entrance to the cul-de-sac, and Maddie was treated to her first good look at Silver Meryll Santiago. She stood watching as the maulers consumed Copperfield, twirling one of her guns with a smug smile on her face. Her white hair was short and woefully unkempt, as though she had cut it with a dull knife. The simple white t-shirt she once wore had been torn across the bottom to reveal her midriff; her white jeans had suffered the same fate, and now ended several inches above her knees. Her wrists and neck still sported the shackles she had once been bound with, but a pair of grey boots covered the ones around her ankles. She holstered her weapon with a grand flourish and looked up. As if on cue, the fire escape rattled alarmingly, but Danny managed to get his mother and Ed safely to the ground before it fell, crushing the maulers.

"I hope you don't expect a 'thank you'," he said scathingly.

She scoffed. _Now, why would I expect something like that?_ "Gratitude is a sign of weakness, after all."

"Why did you help us?" Maddie demanded.

"I didn't help you. I'm protecting what's mine. _Amante…_"

"Stay away from me," Danny growled from between clenched teeth.

Silver mock pouted. "But where's the fun in that?"

"We're not playing your game!"

"No, we're not, and the more's the pity. If we had been, it would have been a lot more fun. Next time, I choose the entertainment."

"There's not going to be a next time."

"Am I dead…?" Ed moaned, interrupting them as he came to.

Maddie huffed, having completely lost her patience with him. "You're fine!" she snapped. "Get up!"

_Oh, just let him rot. He has no imagination._

Ed's mouth worked soundless for a few seconds while he tried to reconcile the fact that Silver had spoken without moving her lips. Maddie and Danny glanced at each other. They had long since figured out that the head of the Paranormal Society was behind most of this, but it was still very unbelievable. Especially when he stood there like a fish out of water. It was Maddie who spoke first. "Ed, what did you do?"

He stared at Silver for a few seconds longer before he managed to tear his gaze away. "I…I…uh, I didn't…do…anything…" His voice was blank and carried a shell shocked quality.

Silver laughed bitterly. "_¿Usted está embromando?_ Are you kidding? No wonder this game is so boring! Stupid people should be left to die. Remember that, _amante._"

Danny looked from Ed to his mother, back to Ed, and finally at Silver. "What are you talking about?" he asked cautiously.

"Ask him why monsters walk the streets," she replied. "Ask him who sent the ferry I stowed away on to get here, and ask him why it was sent."

Ed took a few steps back, cowering away from the three sets of eyes. "Th-the malefactors are my life's w-work," he stammered. "I was only trying t-to study them…"

"Study them?" Silver mimicked. "_Usted idiota_! You brought them here! They escaped, and re-awoke the monsters that live here! And here I thought you did it on purpose." She clicked her tongue in a chastising manner.

The man took a few more steps, then turned and ran, apparently forgetting there was nowhere to go. A click and gunshot knocked him to the ground; he didn't move again. "Now, that that's out of the way…" Silver began.

"How could you?" Danny exclaimed. He thought he was past being shocked by anything she could do; later, he would be happy to note that he thought wrong. At the moment, he was too busy ignoring his mother as she tried to convince him to calm down. A second click and the sight of the silver barrel lowered toward Maddie's head finally forced him to listen.

"You know what I want, _amante,_" Silver said quietly. _You and me, one on one. Winner takes all._

He nodded acceptingly and looked at his mother, who sighed. "Danny…good luck…" She hesitated a moment before retreating out of harm's way.

"All right," Danny said dully. "Let's get this game over with."


	12. Chapter Eleven

Maddie pulled her hood back to wipe her eyes. She didn't want to watch Silver fight her little boy, but she couldn't look away. The psychic barely moved, but Danny was thrown all over the cul-de-sac. Her heart stopped for a moment when he suddenly vanished from sight.

Silver laughed. "I was wondering if you were going to put up a fight!" She was knocked to the ground suddenly by something that hit her from behind. "Should have seen that one coming, huh?"

"I beat you once, Silver," Danny pointed out. "And I'll do it again. Just let us go."

The psychic holstered her gun and smiled. "Doc says you thought that was a dream."

"Wasn't it?" Danny knew what she was trying to imply, but Carnate had to have been a dream. They had only been gone for a few hours, maybe twelve at the most.

"Ah, _amante_. The human mind is so easy to manipulate. Think for a moment. If I can't read your mind, how can interact with you in a dream setting?"

"You made me talk in my sleep!"

"I did that, yes," she agreed. "But I also…suggested to you that you were there longer than you thought. It only takes a few hours to walk across Carnate. While your _familia_ thought they saw you sleep, you were busy seeking me out."

Danny stared, surprised, yet not. "Then they weren't in any danger…" he muttered.

Silver laughed again. "Don't be silly, _amante_. Of course, they were. If you had not defeated me, they would be dead, just as I promised."

She was so good-natured about it, as though it was all a joke. The ghost boy clenched his fists, glowing brighter in his anger. "Why?" he demanded. "Why do that? Why put me through all that?"

"I…I…" In a tone that dripped with misery, she said, "_Estoy enamorado de ti_."

Danny didn't speak Spanish, nor did he particularly care what she said. If he had, he might have been even more disturbed by her than he already was. Because he did not, he simply resumed his attack. Silver dodged the energy blast, an expression of fierce joy on her face, and returned fire with both colts.

_Stay with me_, amanteshe whispered._ Stay with me forever, and never leave me._

"You're sick!" Danny retorted. He thought the image that accompanied those words was even worse than the ones she showed him of his family's brutal murders.

Silver nodded. "Diego said that, too, just before he tried to leave. He doesn't try anymore."

The boy felt an invisible hand grab him around the throat and slam him into the ground. The second it let go, he went intangible and sank into through the asphalt to come back up directly beneath Silver. She flipped herself back onto her feet. A flash of silver metal was Danny's only warning before burning lead shot through his chest, the pain overriding even the deafening sound. If he had been human, he would be dead.

Maddie couldn't stand by and watch any longer; she raised her rifle and fired. With a yelp, the psychic dropped her gun and stared in disbelief at the color that dripped from her wrist. She had to have seen her blood before, but it was still a shock to see that it was red and not white or grey. Then her brain kicked in again and she bit back a howl of agony.

"Get away from my son!" Maddie yelled, aiming at Silver's head and praying she wouldn't actually have to fire.

"_Repulsivo perra!" _Silver screamed. This wasn't part of the game; she wasn't supposed to get hurt. She never got hurt. "I will kill you for that!"

Danny called a warning, but his mother had already dived behind a fallen section of wall. Unfortunately, a little rubble was no match for telekinesis; the wall exploded in a shower of bricks. Maddie rolled out of the way and tried to dive for safety behind a dumpster, but she was lifted into the air and thrown repeatedly into the wall.

"Leave her alone!" Danny yelled, blasting his opponent from behind.

Silver climbed to her feet, dizzy and somewhat weakened from blood loss. "I won't let her take you from me," she informed him. "I'm in love with you, and I'll make you part of me."

Later, Danny wouldn't remember what he had been thinking, except that ectoplasmic energy blasts never stopped her for long. He saw Mongoose lying at his feet. He saw Silver raise Cobra. He saw Maddie cringe in unwilling surrender. There was a gunshot.

Silver turned slowly and muttered, "That works…too…" She fell to her knees, then to her face. A faint, sepia-toned image of Jack and Jazz safe and unharmed in their hotel room flitted across his mind.

"Danny!" Maddie exclaimed, pulling him to her. He hadn't even noticed her approach.

"I…I didn't…" he stuttered. "I mean, I…I…"

Maddie hushed him and whispered that it going to be alright, but he wasn't paying attention. The color red seemed so very out of place as it spread slowly across her body and pooled on the ground from her wrist. He hated her, but he would never have…

Never have…

He fainted.

* * *

"_When you take a life, you make it part of you," Silver said._

_He closed his eyes. "I didn't mean to do that," he whispered._

_A cool hand gripped his chin and tilted his head upward. "Don't worry; it ends the same anyway. Now, I'm tired,_ amante_. I'm going to sleep for a little while. But I'll be back. I'll always come for you, my love."_

Danny was afraid to open his eyes, afraid it would all have been real. His mother was there, and he was comfortable. He wanted to forget it had happened. As much as he hated Silver, he would never have killed her. Not on purpose. He regretted it, but he couldn't seem to feel sorry. Was that wrong?

"Mom?"

"Danny," Maddie breathed, relieved. "Sweetie, do you remember-"

"Yeah," he interrupted. "All of it."

They fell silent; Maddie wanted to say something, but she didn't know what. She wanted to tell him that it okay, but she didn't know how. Jazz was the psychology expert of the family.

"They're fine," Danny said suddenly. He pulled away and stood, refusing to look at his mother as she followed. "They're just at the hotel. They may be unconscious."

They fell silent again as they walked back across the city. The monsters seemed to have vanished with Silver's death, which suited the boy just fine. He was too busy fending off the buzzing noise in his head. He almost thought he could hear his mother's thoughts, but that was impossible.

Wasn't it?

Or was it a new power? It wouldn't have been the first time his desperation had awakened some latent ability. His Ghostly Wail had become active ten years prematurely because his life had been in danger. Maybe the intense emotions he had felt when Maddie's life was threatened had activated some kind of telepathy.

He might have felt a little better about that if it hadn't have been one of Silver's powers.

He jumped, then blushed as he realized it had only been Maddie calling his name. She smiled apologetically. "Sweetie, did you mean it when you said you wish I'd never found out?"

Danny sighed and shook his head. "Not like that," he replied. "I wanted the chance to tell you what happened. You know, explain everything to you and dad. I…" He trailed off. If he could read minds, maybe he could implant suggestions as well. It made him uneasy, but knowing what he was had hurt Maddie. He clenched his fists.

_I'm not the ghost boy_, he thought at her. Somehow, he knew that would be sufficient, that the mind needed to fill in the blanks on its own.

After a few moments, Maddie looked around. "Wasn't Phantom just here?"

"Uh…I think he went that way," Danny answered, gesturing vaguely off to the left. He wasn't sure whether to be happy or disturbed that it had worked, so he decided to think about it later.

His mother sighed and shook her head. "He almost had me convinced that he was you, you know," she admitted.

"I think he just didn't want you to worry."

"Well, I guess it doesn't really matter now. He did help save you."

Danny looked at her finally. He couldn't resist asking, "Are you still going to hunt him down?"

She considered that for a long time. "I don't know. We'll see when we get home."

Well, close enough.


	13. Epilogue

Danny sat in the Fenton ghost RV, staring listlessly out the window. If he never saw the East Coast again, it would be too soon. He heard Jazz say something and ignored her. He wasn't in the mood to talk. All he wanted to do was forget it had happened.

Ever since it happened…ever since she died…he had experienced odd fainting spells. They never lasted for more than a few minutes, fortunately, but he never actually felt unconscious. Everything turned sepia, and he was still aware of what was going on. His vision was blurred, and sounds came to him as if through a long tunnel, but he could still look around and see and hear everything.

Jazz said he fainted because his mind couldn't cope with what he had, in complete justification, done. He decided not tell her he thought it was astral projection. That had been one of…_her_ powers.

Things had a tendency to move on their own in his vicinity, as well. He fought to control it just as he had when he first acquired his ghost powers and tried not to wonder where the three new abilities might have come from.

He sighed; his parents were discussing Ed Johnson again. Apparently, during the investigation into what had happened, the police had run across Ed's files and discovered that he had illegally sent almost two dozen psychics and ghost hunters to their deaths at Carnate. The Fentons had not realized that their presence on the island was against the law, and so had been let off the hook for it after much deliberation with a hastily hired attorney.

It was also discovered that Ed had imported a number of creatures from the island over the past five years, although the exact number and species was still under debate. Few people believed the monsters had actually existed, so popular rumor held that he had actually imported narcotic chemicals weapons. The Paranormal Society was as quick to counter those rumors as it was to denounce its former head. Danny hoped the society would survive the bad publicity; it wasn't their fault Ed had been a lunatic.

So that left just one final mystery: the fate of Silver's corpse. It seemed disturbingly fitting that no one should be able to find it. Maddie had told the police what happened; she had almost been forced to, when they asked. The matter was dropped almost immediately since the District Attorney decided to take pity on the poor boy. And if the complete lack of an investigation had been a surprise coming from a man who wore the nickname "No Mercy" Mathes, well…

No one could blame Danny for mind control. Who would believe it?

He blinked slowly, half asleep, then gasped. For just a split second by the city limits sign, he could see Killjoy standing between Creeper and Copperfield, who was accompanied by his hounds. "Don't worry, my boy," Killjoy said, and Danny knew he was the only one who heard it. "I've taken her body home to Carnate. Unfortunately, I seem to have lost track of her mind. Do tell me if you find her, won't you?"

* * *

A/N: Well, what do you think? I know it wasn't the non stop excitement of the first one, but was it still as good? Writing a sequel (a true sequel, that is) is really one of the hardest things you can do, I've just discovered. It was really difficult to keep from just rehashing the events of Cat and Mouse. I think I did pretty well, though. But what do you think? Because I'm finishing this plot line whether you like it or not. :P


End file.
